A doctor treating a Covid-19 patient at a private hospital said her paediatrician husband had been asked by the private hospital he is attached to not to see patients.

“I called up the hospital and they said since I was treating a coronavirus patient, my husband would not be allowed to treat children there. I explained to them that I am wearing all protective gear prescribed by experts and also keeping myself isolated at home,” she told Metro on Thursday.

The hospital authorities relented after that.

The doctor said she was wearing a head cap, a mask, goggles, gloves, shoe covers and the personal protective equipment (a gown to protect herself from getting infected), whenever she was anywhere near the Covid-19 patient.

She explained how she was keeping herself isolated at home. “I stay in a three-storey house. Since I was made part of the coronavirus treatment team, I have been staying on the ground-floor alone. My family members are leaving food on a plate outside the door. After I am finished, I am washing the plate and leaving it outside,” she said.

The doctor has sent her two children to a relative’s house and is speaking to her husband only on the phone. “I have a car which I drive. Long drives with family seem so unreal now,” she said.

Doctors, nurses and paramedics treating coronavirus patients, though hailed as heroes, are facing discrimination and misbehaviour at many places. This newspaper has reported that a nurse at the Infectious Diseases and Beleghata General Hospital, where Covid-19 patients are being treated, was asked by her landlady not to return to her rented accommodation.

A doctors’ association had written to the Centre about how doctors involved in treatment of coronavirus patients were facing discrimination. Prime minister Narendra Modi and chief minister Mamata Banerjee have issued warnings against such action.

“We are trying to sensitise people about the steps doctors, nurses and paramedics are taking to stay safe while treating coronavirus patients,” a health department official said.

But one of his colleagues has allegedly told the private hospital where a Covid-19 patient is being treated that all doctors and nurses should be home-quarantined.

“If we quarantine them at home, how will they treat patients?” asked a senior official of the hospital. He explained the situation to the health department official, who then reportedly changed his stand.

The World Health Organisation does not prescribe home-quarantine for doctors and nurses engaged in treating coronavirus patients.

A guidance published by WHO on March 19 states health workers involved in the treatment of Covid-19 patients must “put on, use, take off, and dispose of PPE properly”. PPE means personal protection equipment, which prevents the person wearing it from contracting the virus from an infected person.

The health workers should also “self-monitor for signs of illness and self-isolate and report illness to managers, if it occurs”.

A health department official said PPE should be disposed of properly and cannot be worn twice, even by the same person.