Many of these workers have left their jobs in fear of contracting the disease
Hospitals in Beijing are critically short of non-medical staff as many have left their jobs for fear of contracting Sars.
A senior administrator at the Beijing Chest Hospital confirmed yesterday that the hospital was short of up 100 janitors, cooks and repairmen and that many left despite being offered wages of up to 3,000 to 4,000 yuan (HK$2,830 to $3,760), more than 10 times their usual monthly salary.
'We were critically short of these people, but the government is working hard to help us hire the people that we need,' said one official, surnamed Zhang.
Until March, the Beijing Chest Hospital and most of the other 27 Sars-designated hospitals did not deal with infectious diseases. To help cope with the manpower shortage, administrative staff at these hospitals had to pitch in as janitors and cooks in the past two weeks, said Mr Zhang.
'Most of the staff that left either were not from Beijing and hurried back to their home provinces or went to work at non-Sars hospitals,' he said.
