NORTH BAY -- The Ford government is opening another emergency child care centre for front-line workers.

In a media release, Nipissing MPP Vic Fedeli said the Friends Forever Childcare Centre is now open.

"This ensures that front-line health care workers – doctors, nurses and paramedics, firefighters, police, and correctional officers – will be able to access safe, local emergency child care," Fedeli said.

As previously announced, Ontario is exempting certain child care centres from closure.

These centres are providing comprehensive learning and fun programs for children and are operating under different schedule models based on the parents' work hours.

Parents and children are screened by staff in personal protective equipment every time they arrive.

"We know that as health care and other front-line workers try to keep us safe, they could use help on the home front," said Fedeli. "That is why we are teaming up with partners to deliver, in unprecedented speed, child care centres near hospitals and other health care facilities across Ontario."

The newly opened Friends Forever Childcare Centre joins the North Bay Daycare Centre, YMCA Mother St. Bride Centre, YMCA Woodland Early Learning and Child Care Centre in North Bay, and Fairview Early Learning and Child Care Centre in Powassan, as available centres.