.jpg)
New facility open only to children of Ely-Bloomenson staff
Ely-Bloomenson Community Hospital has expanded its horizons - adding child care to health care in an effort to attract and retain employees.
A formal ribbon cutting was held last week at EBCH Family Daycare, the new facility adjacent to the hospital campus that now serves 14 children of EBCH employees.
The hospital purchased the building in late-2023 and moved into child care following an extensive effort that began three years earlier, including employee and community surveys and found a glaring demand for child care.
“It was becoming clear that people were struggling with child care and we knew if there was a way that we could offer employee child care, it would help greatly, and it has helped with retention,” said Patti Banks, chief executive officer at EBCH.
At the April 24 ribbon cutting, Rochelle Sjoberg, who heads EBCH’s human resource team, called the daycare “a promise we have kept to the people who make EBCH, and for us that is our team.”
“The daycare is more than a convenience for our staff, it is a strategy,” said Sjoberg. “In today’s health care world, we are all facing retention challenges and recruitment issues and daycare shortages. This is a way that we can say ‘we see you, we value you and we hear you and we want you here for the long haul.’” For several years, a child care shortage posed a vexing dilemma in the Ely area, and created economic issues, with employers, including EBCH, struggling to retain employees and attract new ones because of the issue.
“We really saw it during Covid,” said Banks. “And especially after when everybody started to revert back to normal for a lack of a better term. We had people who were struggling to come to work because their kids were still at home.”
EBCH engaged the community and area officials and first looked to be part of collaborative efforts that would lead to a solution.
But the opportunity to purchase the building next to the Sibley and Grahek apartments, a facility initially developed to be a private care facility and respite home, brought EBCH more directly in to the child care realm.
“We didn’t start out intending to open our own daycare,” said Jodi Martin, EBCH’s marketing and communications team leader. “We set up meetings with the county and local daycare providers on how we could assist, but the need was greater when we started looking into it. We didn’t intend to go down this road, but it worked out.”
The EBCH facility is open only to children of hospital staff and does not serve the general public.
Hospital employees pay for the service, but rates are slightly less than those charged by other providers in town.
“If we can offer it as an employee benefit, we can get some of our expenses reimbursed,” said Banks.
The service has been very well received by hospital staff, officials say, and the facility run by former area daycare operator Machelle Stepec serves children as young as eight months old through preschool age.
Banks said the hospital is looking at adding one or two more part-time staff.
The 14 children come from 10 different families, and the facility has proven to be a hit with hospital staff who might not otherwise be able to find child care options.
“We made it clear we’re not here to compete (with private providers) but we just knew there was that big of a need,” said Banks.
