The Newfoundland and Labrador government is partnering with the YMCA to create new daycare spaces exclusively for health-care professionals with hours outside the standard workday.
The province will open around 160 new $10-per-day spaces in at a new building on St. Michael’s Avenue in St. John’s, Discovery Collegiate in Bonavista and Eastside Elementary in Corner Brook. The spaces should be ready in the next six months and will have hours that meet the needs of medical professionals, said Premier Andrew Furey at an announcement Thursday.
“Your job often starts at 7 a.m. May end at four, may not end at four,” said Furey, who is also an orthopedic surgeon.
“That creates significant child-care issues.… I’ve seen nurses scrambling in the background scrambling being scrubbed, calling out their friends to try and arrange child care for them, and an initiative like this will actually go a long, long way to provide certainty to the hard-working women and men in the system.”
Furey said the program’s longer-term goal is to provide 24/7 child-care options for those who work varying shifts, adding it could attract more nurses and other medical professionals to the province.
“What we are hearing, loud and clear across all medical disciplines, is what people want the most is the professional-personal balance. And this will unlock that for them,” he said.
The announcement comes after nearly 2,000 health-care workers were surveyed about their child-care needs. Yvette Coffey, president of the Registered Nurses’ Union of