Kentucky public health nurses and administrative staff travel to North Carolina to help people displaced by Hurricane Dorian

A team of Kentucky public-health nurses are on their way to North Carolina to provide medical support in local shelters filled by Hurricane Dorian for about two weeks, said the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services.

The “strike team” is made up of registered nurses and administrative staff. They will provide medical support to people who have been displaced from their homes by the hurricane and are living in general and medical-needs shelters. “I commend them and thank them for their compassionate service,” Health Secretary Adam Meier said in a news release.

People in medical-support shelters “have medical needs and are in relatively stable condition, but have a chronic disease or condition such as diabetes or require oxygen or dialysis,” the release says. “Nurses will be conducting medical history and physical exams, providing patient assessments, assisting with medicine administration, and providing general nursing care and comfort.”

Requests for such assistance are coordinated and authorized through a multi-state compact, under which the requesting state reimburses all associated costs incurred by the provider state, the release said. Kentucky sent a similar strike team to North Carolina in September of last year to provide medical support to victims of Hurricane Florence.

The weather Channel reports that peak impacts from Hurricane Dorian will arrive in North Carolina Thursday into Friday.