NATCHEZ &8212;Employees and clients of the Natchez Regional Medical Center day care center aren&8217;t happy with a financial decision to close the center.

Director of the day care center, Renee Effary said CEO Jeff Wesselman came into a meeting Monday night and said the center will close on Dec. 1, 2006.

&8220;I don&8217;t want to split up my children from this day care center,&8221; Effary said. &8220;This is something the community will not forget for a long time.&8221;

Wesselman said he and the board of trustees are working toward getting Natchez Regional out of about $28 million in debt and to do this certain things have to be let go.

&8220;We are losing a substantial amount of money each year from the daycare center,&8221; Wesselman said.

Sonjagela Johnson is a Captain for the U.S. Army and a former employee of Natchez Regional.

When she was deployed to Afghanistan in 2003 she talked to former CEO Jack Houghton and arranged for her daughter Hanna to go to the day care center.

&8220;Natchez Regional day care center was the only place where my daughter didn&8217;t cry when her dad dropped her off,&8221; Johnson said. &8220;They don&8217;t understand that moving a child from one day care center to another is not a good thing.&8221;

According to a press release from Natchez Regional Medical Center, the center was opened in 1982 as a benefit for employees of the medical center and currently has only 15 employees utilizing the center. The center is open to over 500 employees who work at Natchez Regional.

To help increase the number of participants in the center, the day care center was opened to people who were not employees.

The current rate for someone who is not an employee to enroll their child at Natchez Regional&8217;s daycare center is a $35 registration fee, $75 per week for one child and $115 per week for two. For an employee it is $70 for one child and $110 for two, Effary said.

According to the press release, the hospital is committed to using a recent refinancing of bonds and the money obtained from the Mississippi Rural Development Association to structure the hospital &8220;as the leading healthcare facility for our region.&8221;

At a meeting last week Wesselman promised to find employees and children of the daycare center openings in other daycare centers in the area or would find employees who qualified, a job in the hospital itself, Effary said.

&8220;When he came to the meeting this time he said that the six employees without jobs, come December, would not be his concern,&8221; Effary said.

Wesselman denied making this statement and said that he would not discuss the employees at the meeting, but that this meeting was for the children.