Deepa Devi, 40, an attendant for patient care, is living an irony amid the novel coronavirus.

For years she has served the ailing but now when hospitals are filled with Covid-19 patients she has no job.

The work that used to fetch her around Rs 300 a day exists no more because even the ailing are being advised to maintain social distancing.

With hospitals serving to emergency cases only, hundreds of patient attendants in the city are now looking for alternative ways of livelihood.

Usually a patient attendant earns anywhere between Rs 6,000 and Rs 15,000 a month but now they are compelled to seek help from others.

Many among the attendants are single mothers or the sole earning member of the family.

“I used to attend to patients in the female ward of Tata Main Hospital but now they don’t have so many patients. The ones who need care at home too aren’t hiring us to maintain distance. So I am idle. I have a teenager son who studies in college and there are other expenses too. We have received some help from social organisations who have distributed dry ration but having no cash is a problem,” said Deepa.

Some agencies have preferred to help a few depending on their family background but a large number of attendants remain jobless because of the lockdown.

“I have no work. In fact there is no work at all. I don’t know how long will this last because people will keep maintaining distance and our income will be at stake. What do I do with four dependants?” said Shyamal Kumar, a male attendant.

It is not just financial crisis. Some attendants are also braving social stigma.

“I work for a paralysed patient but whenever I come home from work, my landlord tells me very rudely not to bring novel coronavirus home. He asks me to leave. My husband, a daily wage labourer, doesn’t have work either and I can’t leave my job because it supports the family,” said Kusum Prasad, 30, an attendant in Mango.