Center for County Workers’ Sick Children May Close for Lack of Use : Day care: Only four youngsters have been cared for this month at Hickory Dickory Doc, which cost $11,000 to set up. It may be shared with a private company.

With much fanfare last year, county officials opened an innovative day-care center for employees to use when their children were ill.

But now the county may shut down the brightly decorated bungalow in Ventura called Hickory Dickory Doc. The county’s approximately 8,000 employees use it so rarely that often no children show up for care.

“The usage is almost nil,” said Supervisor Madge L. Schaefer, who proposed the center.

The center is designed for mildly ill children and is located behind Ventura County Medical Center, which provides a licensed practical nurse. The center is open weekdays from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. for children 3 months to 12 years old.

But most days the center is closed because no children are brought in for care. It has never operated at full capacity--six children. Only four children have been cared for so far this month.

Because of the low usage, county supervisors plan to consider an agreement Tuesday allowing a large Ventura company to share Hickory Dickory Doc with the ill children of its employees.

But Schaefer said she has reservations about such an arrangement with Lost Arrow, the parent company for Patagonia, Great Pacific Ironworks and Great Pacific Child Development.

“I have questions about whether we should even continue, much less enter a contract with a private company,” she said. “We’re subsidizing county employees. I don’t think we should subsidize a private child-care program with public money.”

She raised the possibility of converting it from a place for sick children to a traditional day-care center for well infants of county employees. She said the county has a waiting list of 20 employees who need such care.

The center was set up as an experiment to find out if employees would use it, Schaefer said.

“We need to look at it again before we go on,” she said.

When it opened the center in the spring of 1989, Ventura County was hailed as a pioneer at a time of growing interest in child care by governmental agencies and private companies. It’s the first government-operated program of its kind in Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties, according to Schaefer’s office.

At the time, the county hoped it would reduce the $360,000 it pays in sick leave each year. In a survey of child-care needs conducted by the county’s personnel staff, about 68% of those responding favored establishing a facility for mildly ill children.

Why it wasn’t used more is unclear.

“They don’t need it,” Schaefer said. She also reasoned that perhaps parents preferred to stay home with their sick children. The county allows employees to use sick leave for that purpose.

“It’s the kind of thing that sounds great on paper,” Schaefer said, but doesn’t work in reality.

One county employee, who asked not to be identified, praised the concept but said he and his wife have never needed to use it when their daughter was sick.

“It’s a good excuse for one of us to stay home,” he said. “It’s a chance for some quiet time.”

Another factor may be the cost. The center charges $2 to $3 an hour.

Schaefer said county employees knew about the center, and many attended an open house when the program started.

Parents who used Hickory Dickory Doc liked it, Schaefer said. It looks much like a typical day-care center. Geared for quiet activity, the center has games, books and a big-screen television. In one corner, little chairs surround a blackboard. Cardboard blocks are stacked up next to a plastic tunnel that children can crawl through. Pink cribs and cots are positioned in secluded spots.

In the front room are two big easy chairs, a mound of beanbag chairs and a child’s rocker. Meals can be prepared in a kitchen or brought in on trays from the hospital.

When there are no sick children to care for, the nurse assigned to the center works in another area of the hospital.

The county spent $11,000 to get the program started. Most of the furnishings were donated. Ventura County Medical Center officials were unable on Friday to say how much the center costs to operate on an annual basis, nor were they able to say how many children have used it since it opened.

Schaefer said fees paid by parents don’t come close to paying for the nurses who are on call to work in the center.

Supervisor Maggie Erickson said “I hate to give up” on the center, which required a year of planning.

“We have to be careful about subsidizing child care,” Erickson said. “But maybe by adding Patagonia it can become more self-supporting.”

Anita Garaway, Lost Arrow’s child-care coordinator, had no explanation for the low usage of Hickory Dickory Doc by county employees.

“Parents don’t change child-care routines easily,” she said. As for her company, she said, “The need is there, and the interest is there.”