Katie's Cottage is open, and will remain open, during the duration of this week's blizzard providing a tremendously important place to stay just east of Boundary Trails Health Centre. The home away form home usually serves the family of patients, or patients staying ahead of an appointment, but highway closures and terrible weather conditions led the group to open its doors to hospital staff starting Tuesday evening.

"We are open, because we need to be here," said spokesperson Ruth Reimer. "I've just realized how important our places were as an extenstion of the hospital.

. A snowy Wednesday at Katie's Cottage which will remain open during the storm. All pictures submitted by Abby Wall. Staff are coming in, and so some will be sleeping during the day, and then we clean the room and change everything. Then the evening staff can come and sleep, and then we start all over in the morning again, just like we did this morning (Wednesday)."

Reimer noted the life threatening conditions caused by the blizzard led Katie's Cottage to make the deicision to open its space to hospital staff, noting they have brought in beds and converted the library and meeting rooms to sleeping spaces. She stressed, in addition to staff, their rooms are full with many other people who need to be near to BTHC for one reason or another.

"We have some guests here needing to be close due to the birth of a baby, and then we have some that had surgery yesterday (Tuesday), but couldn't go home today, so they're staying. Then we have the dialysis patients as well, so these people need to be close to the hospital, so that they can get to their appointments, because it's regarding their life."

She says the staff who have stayed, the first group Tuesday evening, some coming in very tired after a double shift, have really appreciated the gesture from Katie's Cottage.

"I think for us, as a staff, it's very rewarding to be able to give back, and have it mean something to someone that they're safe," said Reimer. "Their family knows they're safe that are at home, everybody is safe, and we've made so many plans to make sure we were open."

Reimer pointed to Triple L Excavating keeping the Katie's Cottage parking lot clean, and the R.M. of Stanley clearing the road south from Highway 3 to the Hospital and Katie's Cottage turn offs as examples of working together for that common goal.