Health care workers stay overnight to care for patients in winter storm

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) – Some jobs can call off for the day, or for several days, if winter weather emerges. Not true for many health care workers.

At Norton Healthcare, arrangements were made for workers that provides them a place to stay and keeps them safe off icy roadways.

Inside patient rooms, the hospital made beds not only for nurses and staff, but also for family members.

Lindsey Bowers, Assistant Nurse Manager from Norton Healthcare’s Oncology Unit, slept over at the hospital while everything froze on Thursday night.

She said anyone involved in patient care has the option to stay overnight in a patient room.

“There’s lots of options for whoever wants a place to sleep in, and then there’s chairs and other things too,” Bowers said. “So, I mean two or three people can sleep in rooms together, which some of us may do because we like to hang out, talk, do that after we worked a 12-hour shift.”

Bowers said the process to request a bed is usually simple. Workers are given a room right away with no issues.

A majority of the staff will be working through the weekend and plan to stay overnight in patient rooms until the roads clear.