in addition to staffing, the pandemic has brought extra costs for audy, including personal protective equipment and cleaning expenses.
it’s vital to avoid a closure so as not to inconvenience parents, audy said.
“we might go into some debt through this but our priority is to have that consistency for parents and a safe workplace for our staff,” she said.
child-care centres are doing the best they can with their resources, audy added, but she said some have been unable to follow the same levels of precautions.
across all of alberta, there are now 66 child-care outbreaks, said rakhi pancholi, the opposition ndp’s critic on children’s issues.
the surge was predictable given case increases in schools over the past few months, pancholi said.
“our child care is absolutely essential for parents who are working right now. it needs to be open, but it needs to be open safely,” pancholi said.
she called for rapid testing for child-care programs and funding for ppe, air filters and temporary staffing.
“i’m hearing from programs saying, ‘we don’t have the staff,’ either because they’re sick or they have symptoms or they’re isolating or they’re caring for their own children who are also out of school,” pancholi said.