UPDATED: Oakwood Hospital Suspends Childcare; Cites Program Costs

Editor's note: This story has been updated to accurately report that Oakwood announced the closing of its child care and adult day care services in July.

Dearborn-area families with children enrolled in Oakwood Hospital Medical Center's daycare program will soon have to look elsewhere for services beginning this fall.

The hospital announced that it plans to close its child care center, located at 3601 Pelham Road in Dearborn, on Aug. 30 after more than 30 years. The hospital is also suspending adult day care services.

"The decision to no longer subsidize these services was a very difficult one and is no way a reflection on the compassionate, quality care the staffs have provided over the years," Paula Rivera-Kerr, media relations manager for the hospital said.

"This decision has been made solely in the context of an extremely harsh financial environment that is forcing all health care organizations to change the way they do business."

Rivera-Kerr said ending the child care service will affect a total of 78 children, half of which are children of Oakwood employees. She said there has been a steady decline in enrollment and services provided for both the hospital's child day care and adult day care over the past few years.

"We did not anticipate that trend changing in the future," Rivera-Kerr said.

The programs themselves, while not a large component of the hospital's $1.2 billion budget, were also not self-sustaining, requiring hospital administration to re-evaluate how it allocates a yearly subsidy to keep the doors open.

"Like other healthcare organizations, Oakwood has been impacted by a number of environmental issues, including the continuing effects of healthcare reform and reductions in reimbursements from federal programs such as Medicare," Rivera-Kerr said. "Unfortunately, these significant challenges have prompted us to review all aspects of our business and make some tough decisions to address our financial realities.

"We had to make a painstaking decision about how we could put all our resources toward our core services. Unfortunately there was not a scenario that would have allowed child care be a self-sustaining program."

Employees affected by center's closure

Oakwood Hospital administration officials said the closure of the day care center will affect about 20 employees, however the hospital has been assisting the employees with job placement programs.

"We have encouraged all employees to consider applying for other positions that may be available within the Oakwood system, and we will provide references for whichever path they choose to pursue," Rivera-Kerr said.

Dearborn resident Nathan Mazur, who has used the child day care for the past four years, said the hospital's handling of the situation has been less than ideal.

"These employees have become like family to all of the people who trusted them for years to care for their children. They don’t deserve the treatment that they are getting." he said. 

Mazur claims that some of the center's employees have not had their questions answered by the hospital's Human Resources office.

"When someone has given 20 years of service to an organization, and they are told 'send us your resume' and all phone calls for help are ignored, I can’t sit quietly and ignore it. It’s not right," he said. 

"The Human Resources department has not been returning phone calls when these employees call to ask for help. All-in-all, this has been a very disappointing experience for the families, and the employees, and this is not what I would expect from a community organization like Oakwood," Mazur said.

In a letter dated July 31, Mazur writes:

I understand business and numbers very well. I was told by “David” from your HR department that this is a purely financial decision. However that was never elaborated on, and quite honestly, I don’t buy that answer. With 91 children, and 30 adult day care participants, this simply cannot be a purely financial decision. In addition, every parent I have spoken with personally has made it clear that they would have paid more for us to continue to have access to the staff at Oakwood moving forward. Every single one. Raise our prices by $500/month/family. We wouldn’t even blink. That is how much your dedicated and amazing staff over there means to us, and our children.

To date, Mazur said he has not received a response to his letter.

Finding a child care alternative

Rivera-Kerr said since the hospital first announced plans to close its child care center in July, the staff have been providing resources and meeting with parents to help find available services.

"We provided (parents) with a listing of 39 other local child care centers within the city of Dearborn to consider as well as directions to a website that could expand their search by city or zip code. In addition, we are researching and identifying adult day care facilities and notifying families of the local options available to them," she said.

Since the announcement, the center's director has had numerous follow up discussions with parents, and the adult day care supervisor has also been meeting individually with families to discuss their options, as well.

"We know the staff and the services provided at the Oakwood Adult and Child Day Care Center were beloved by its members and the community, and we are grateful for the years of service and dedication the staff and facility were able to serve the community," Rivera-Kerr said.

For questions about the center's closure, call 313-436-2000, or 313-436-2440.