Health systems look to connect employees with child care during COVID-19 outbreak
Wisconsin health systems are looking for ways to ensure that their workers have access to child care as schools remain closed due to the new coronavirus.
Gov. Tony Evers expanded school closures indefinitely Tuesday and banned gatherings of 10 or more. The order exempted child care facilities, which state officials have said are necessary for healthcare workers and first responders.
Department of Health Services Secretary-designee Andrea Palm said that keeping the child care system functioning is critical for healthcare workers, those in nursing homes and others needed to “keep the healthcare system robust and able to handle incoming patients who are suffering from more severe disease.”
“The rationale is really a fundamental public health need to have an infrastructure in place whereby this critical workforce can maintain their job,” she told reporters on Monday.
The Department of Children and Families issued guidance Sunday for child care providers during the epidemic, calling them a “vital resource” for first responders during the crisis.
On Sunday, Marshfield Clinic Health System asked the communities it serves to help it assist employees in finding child care. The health system provided an email and said that the information would be posted on an internal board for employees.
Marshfield Clinic spokesman Jeff Starck said Wednesday that they don’t have an exact number of people who’ve responded but they’ve had “great engagement from the community.”
“We appreciate the many people who have stepped forward across Wisconsin to offer their child care services,” he wrote in an email. “We’re in the process of helping match child care providers with our staff so they can have some relief knowing that their child care needs are taken care of. It makes a big difference as we need all the help we can get during this pandemic to keep our staff in our hospitals.”
At Bellin Health, employees started a Facebook group to link employees with older children, or other family members that would be able to provide child care, to workers with young kids.
Brittany Shallow, an orthopedic team leader and one of the originators of the effort, said they were looking to connect high school students with grade school kids who can’t stay home by themselves.
“It kind of escalated,” she said. “We have about 1,100 employees on that site, offering up, ‘Hey, I can watch you on my day off,’ I can offer up my kiddos, ‘Some of my college kids didn’t go back to college. They’re doing more online stuff, they’re a little bit more flexible.’ It really just brought our Bellin community together.”
The provider also partners with Encompass, a child care organization in Green Bay that offers a discount to Bellin employees, she said.
Children’s Wisconsin partners with Bright Horizons to provide discounted back-up child, adult or elder care, per health system spokeswoman Ashley Cobert. The service is available to all benefits-eligible staff when regular caregivers aren’t available or their children’s school or daycare center is closed.
UnityPoint Health-Meriter spokeswoman Leah Huibregtse said they’re working to connect employees with child care. They also have on-site child care.
UW Health spokeswoman Emily Kumlien said Monday their human resources team is working on contingency plans to ensure providers and staff have child care. They’ve invested heavily in laptops and other technology as an option for employees who can perform their jobs remotely.
ProHealth Care is exploring what it might be able to do about child care either independently or with partners, spokeswoman Ann Dee Allen said.
Wisconsin Health News is removing the password on all stories related to the coronavirus. For the latest developments follow us on Twitter at @wihealthnews or check out our website. For complete healthcare coverage, sign up for a free trial to our daily email newsletter.
