Many healthcare professionals who have recovered from Covid-19 are reluctant to work in Covid wards after resuming duty. Some, mostly nurses and junior doctors, have even quit, officials of several private hospitals said.

Hospitals are counselling such staff and are offering or planning to introduce financial incentives to motivate them to resume work in Covid wards.

Public health experts said such fear was not unusual during a pandemic as there was confusion about how the virus spread and whether a person once infected could contract the disease again.

One private hospital off EM Bypass had about 85 health-care professionals who were infected by the coronavirus. About 70 of them have resumed duty but most are reluctant to work in Covid wards.

The employees include junior doctors, nurses, paramedics, technicians working at pathological laboratories and radiology departments, electricians, plumbers and housekeeping staff.

“Electricians and plumbers who have recovered from Covid are scared to go to the cabins where Covid patients are being treated. Some are going after much persuasion. This is affecting patient services,” said the CEO of the hospital.

He said even some of the pathologists who were earlier performing Covid tests are refusing to do so after recovering from the disease. “Some radiologists, too, are reluc-tant to conduct chest X-ray of Covid patients,” the CEO said.

At another private hospital, 51 employees, including nurses and doctors, have tested positive for Covid-19. Till date, around 45 have rejoined duty. Some of the nurses who had contracted the disease have resigned and gone back to their respective states.

“A few are willing to return, but after some time,” the CEO of the hospital said.

Hospitals said at a time when they were facing a shortage of personnel because many were quarantined and some infected by the virus, such reluctance was affecting patient services. They said counselling of such employees was being done at several levels, at times in an unconventional way.

“Psychologists in the hospital, human resource personnel and department colleagues are counselling these employees,” said an official of a private hospital.

At one hospital, the CEO had to intervene on several occasions and accompany electricians or plumbers to the Covid ward or cabin to boost their confidence that they would not contract the virus if they visited the treatment zone with proper precaution.

“The high rate of infection among employees is having an effect on colleagues,” said an official of a private hospital. There are a few employees who are reluctant to work with colleagues who have recovered from Covid and have returned to work.

The CEO of a chain of hospitals said they had to explain such apprehensive employees that when their colleagues were down with Covid-19 infection, the treatment cost was borne by the company.

“We tell them that those with mild symptoms are put up at satellite units. They are mostly employees who don’t have facilities of self-isolation at home. We have announced monetary incentives to make people go to Covid wards,” said the CEO.

He said 25-odd junior doctors, whom they had asked to work at Covid wards, had resigned.