The civil administration is making efforts to ease the shortfall of nurses in nursing homes in Wuhan, Hubei province, amid the ongoing novel coronavirus pneumonia.

Yu Jianliang, director of nursing services under the Ministry of Civil Affairs, said at a news conference held by the State Council Information Office on Monday that the nation is facing great shortage of nursing staff, while the situation is worse in Wuhan, the epicenter, because of the epidemic.

"There are about 23,000 senior citizens in nursing homes in Wuhan, however, we only have 3,000 nursing workers there," he said. "Some of the nursing workers can't get back to their positions because the city was in lockdown, while some of them are themselves infected with the coronavirus."

He said the nursing workers are exhausted because they keep working without shifts and have to live at the nursing homes after strict control measures were taken against the epidemic since Jan 23.

"The ministry then called up for 50 nursing workers from other four cities of the province and 118 from another three provinces to support Wuhan," he said.

He said the external assistance, however, may not fundamentally solve the problem that Wuhan is facing. The key to resuming nursing services was by encouraging more nursing workers to get back to their work and recruit more nursing staff members.

"The 168 supporting nursing workers and managers can only help eight nursing homes relieve their pressures, while the city has 270 nursing homes facing labor force shortfall," he said.

The ministry is encouraging nursing workers from low-risks areas to return to their positions, and help recruit new nursing workers to better relieve the shortage, he said.

According to him, there are over two million senior citizens living in 400-plus nursing homes across the nation, with only about 200,000 nursing workers serving them.

"Actually, their salary is not that high while they work 24-hour a day and serve 10 old people on average. Moreover, many of the aged are disabled or suffer from dementia, which makes the job more difficult to handle," he said.

There were 1,795 confirmed cases and 164 suspected infections in some special facilities such as nursing homes, welfare houses and detention centers in Hubei until Thursday.