Sad day as hospital child care center closes

This week marks another sad day in the history of Backus Hospital.
The child care center, operated on the grounds of the hospital, is closing, in a cost saving measure.

Healthcare is still a predominantly female profession, and child care responsibilities still remain predominately a female responsibility.
For 29 years, parents could bring their children to work, knowing that if their child needed them, if they were ill, or scared, or just missed mom or dad, they were but a few minutes walk away.
Often, parents would drop in at lunch and the children would come and visit departments dressed in costumes on special occasions.
These events were always warmly greeted by employees, patients, and visitors.
Those days are gone.

The child care center was a great employee benefit that the hospital felt it could no longer afford.
It was financed through employee payments for the service and some hospital subsidies.
Like all hospitals, Backus is looking to trim expenses, as evidenced by their financial records provided by the hospital to the state Department of Public Health.

Being a not for profit hospital, Backus has an Operating Margin, not a Profit Margin.
Last year that margin was $35,533,000.
The top 10 salaries at Backus last year totaled $5,270,515.

While these are healthy numbers, hospitals are concerned about the uncertainty of the future.
Hospital employees, and their children, are concerned about the uncertainty of the future too.

http://www.norwichbulletin.com/article/20140618/News/140619463
http://www.ct.gov/dph/lib/dph/ohca/hospitalfillings/2013/system_statement_of_ops_2013.pdf

http://www.ct.gov/dph/lib/dph/ohca/hospitalfillings/2013/top10_salary_2013.pdf