HEALTH CARE : Child’s Play Will Be Low Cost, High Tech at PacifiCare’s New Day Care Facility

PacifiCare Health Systems Inc. just spent a lot of money on child’s play.

The health maintenance organization on Monday unveiled its state-of-the-art day care center for children of its employees.

The PacifiCare Child Development Center, which cost $3 million to build, will charge employees between $85 and $115 a week to look after their children. That tuition price is about 80% of the cost at most private centers.

For PacifiCare employees, 76% of whom are women, the center is a welcome addition to the company’s benefits package.

“This has always been a dream for me,” said Lucy Cunningham, president of the PacifiCare Foundation, who joined puppeteer Shari Lewis to dedicate the facility. “It’s wonderful to see that dream come true for me and a lot of other people.”

The center, across the street from the company’s headquarters in Cypress, has a two-story building equipped with everything from cribs to classrooms stocked with the newest child development aids, books and toys.

Outside is a 12,000-square-foot playground with a network of roads--complete with highway signs--that youngsters can travel on tricycles and pedal cars.

Orange County Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder, who helped cut the ribbon, said that a company-sponsored child care center is becoming more a necessity for two-income families.

She said that providing such a facility to workers is an example that should be emulated by the county, which employs about 12,000 workers. Wieder said that a study was conducted for the county as long as 12 years ago. At that time, she said, “the county was not ready for it.” Now, the need cannot be ignored, Wieder said.

“If the private sector can do it,” Wieder said, “we ought to be able to do it. We should go out and explore that possibility.”