NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — The Hutchinson Regional Healthcare System Academy will be functioning next year, if everything remains on schedule.
"We are looking at opening up a childcare academy for the employees of the healthcare system," said director Penny Stoss. "That would include the hospital, Health E-Quip, Hospice and Horizons, with goals of hopefully being able to open it out even further to more of our medical professionals. Right now, Reno County is extremely short on childcare slots."
These would be for kids from teenage on down.
"We will open up an infant wing, probably two to six weeks all the way up to age 10 or 12 depending on the need," Stoss said. "We're looking at nine classrooms or nine units to host about 135 to 160 children."
The reason childcare is needed for those above school age is because hospital work is 24/7/365.
"We would open up early, let's say 6:00 or 6:30 a.m.," Stoss said. "We would go to 7:30 p.m. We're even exploring, eventually, one of our phases might be to do overnight care for our employees that work 24 hours. Along with that also is, you have vacations and snow days and summer care where families don't have any place that's safe to take their children at those ages."
Construction work still needs to take place inside the former Dillon Living Center building to properly divide the space, so an opening date is not firmed up yet, but the goal is to get an assistant director and staff hired as soon after the completion of renovation as possible in an effort to open sometime in 2023.