Private hospitals that have recently lost many nurses because of the Covid-19 scare can consider appointing retired nurses to tide over the shortage, chief minister Mamata Banerjee said on Monday.

In this context, Mamata referred to the state government’s decision to hire retired people in various capacities during the Covid-19 crisis.

“I have heard many nurses have left private hospitals. About 350 nurses have left. I have asked the chief secretary (Rajiva Sinha) to talk to the hospitals from where nurses have left,” the chief minister said.

“Many retired nurses and technicians are now free. Private hospitals can hire them if they appeal to work again. We have employed many retired people.”

Officials of several private hospitals in the city said they were trying to plug the gap through various means and taking steps to prevent any further departure.

“We are in talks with people who have retired early, paramedics and home-care providers who are out of job now. They can help fill the void created by the departure of so many nurses,” said Alok Roy, the chairman of Medica Superspecialty Hospital.

He said those people could work in OPDs and fever clinics so that nurses can devote more time in operating theatres and intensive care units.

About one hundred nurses have left Medica, Roy said.

An official of AMRI Hospitals said the administration was counselling nurses not to leave. “Eight-one nurses have left our hospital. We are counselling those who have stayed back so that they do not leave. In the last two days, none has left,” said the official.

While many hospital administrators said the immediate impact might not be severe as fewer patients are in hospital because of the Covid-19 scare, the situation would worsen once non-Covid-19 patients start getting admitted in increasing numbers.

But one official said if most of the nurses who would leave were from the critical care unit, the impact could be immediately felt.

Metro reported on Friday that nurses from several states working in various private hospitals in Calcutta had been leaving because of the fear they might contract the novel coronavirus. As many as 185 nurses from Manipur recently left for their home state by bus.

Nurses from other states, too, have returned home in large numbers, a number of private hospital officials said.

An official of a private hospital said the Bengal government had written to the Association of Hospitals of Eastern India saying it was look-ing for ways to address the problem.

Mamata also said the private hospitals could think about employing residents of nearby areas in some basic jobs such as administering saline and giving medicines based on a doctor’s prescription. Those people will be deployed after a seven-day training.

“It takes 2 to 2.5 years to train a nurse. The hospitals can employ some local people after giving them a short seven-day training. These people can administer oxygen, saline and give medicines

as prescribed by doctors. They can be called helpers, not nurses,” Mamata said.

The chief minister stressed that only trained nurses would be on duty in surgery cases.