Comfort Inn and Suites offering free rooms to frontline healthcare workers. (file photo/battlefordsNOW Staff)

By Keaton Brown

A comfortable bed

Local hotel providing free rooms to frontline healthcare workers during COVID-19

Apr 3, 2020 | 1:14 PM

A local hotel is offering its assistance to frontline healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Comfort Inn and Suites in North Battleford will offer frontline healthcare workers free rooms to stay in for the next few weeks in order to help them protect their families.

Comfort Inn and Suites offering free rooms to frontline healthcare workers. (file photo/battlefordsNOW staff)

“I’ve got a floor designated for them right now,” Darin Manegre, sales and business relationship manager for Comfort Inn and Suites, said. “They will have access through their own elevator.”

Frontline healthcare workers are working long hours in direct contact with potential COVID-19 patients and are worried about bringing the virus home to their families.

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Manegre said he can relate to families who are worried about transmission from a family member working on the frontline, as his wife works at the hospital.

“With my son home from university, and I’m working at home right now, the unknown about them coming home and the possibility of them bringing it to the household,” he said.

Manegre said healthcare workers will be able to have extended stays at the hotel if needed to better match with their shifts.

“If they’ve got a big layoff of four to seven days, we’ll give it a few days before we go in and do a deep cleaning of the room and then we’ll have it set up for another healthcare worker,” he said.

Breakfasts and other meals the hotel normally provides will not be available to the healthcare workers as a safety precaution with the rest of the hotel and maintaining the quarantine. Manegre said there would be menus available from local restaurants for workers who want to order food in.

“They will deliver the meals to the hotel, right to their door,” he said.

Manegre’s firsthand experience of having a frontline healthcare worker in his home and through talking to the nurses’ union made him aware there was a need for a program like this. He said the feedback they have been getting has been overwhelming.

“I knew it was something that was needed because of my own situation,” he said. “We have been getting a lot of really good comments on it so far.”

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Keaton.brown@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @battlefordsnow