A growing number of doctors, nurses and other medical workers are experiencing an unexpected ripple effect from the deadly coronavirus outbreak gripping the globe: They’re calling it pandemic pay cuts.

As hospitals scale back nonemergency operations and treatments to prepare for an onslaught of coronavirus patients, they’re also slashing hours, cutting pay and benefits for the workers who perform those jobs in a desperate bid to stem revenue losses.

Doctors and other health care workers, who across the board requested anonymity because their bosses have imposed strict policies against talking to media, say the trend is leaving hospitals with less staff and lower capacity, even as public health officials warn a surge in patients could be coming and urge retired doctors and others to volunteer to serve in COVID-19 hotspots.

“The fact that we don’t have a surge now and don’t need that workforce now doesn’t mean we aren’t going to in a few weeks. You want to retain the workforce and make sure you don’t lose that capacity,” said Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access, a statewide health care consumer advocacy coalition. “As nice as it is for retired doctors to volunteer, there’s no substitute for people who are already on payroll, who already know the processes, who are set and ready to go.”

Unlike many other countries, the U.S. has a market-driven, fragmented health care system where hospitals and clinics rely heavily on elective procedures for revenue. So when a pandemic occurs, the challenge of shifting resources to meet the need is especially complicated. Some hospitals with lots of people on ventilators will receive tens of thousands of dollars from insurance companies. But clinics that aren’t doing essential work could be devastated. And insurance premiums could rise as the insurance industry reels from the deadly virus.

“I do think there will need to be some accounting and accountability afterward, not to second guess tough judgment calls, but to ensure the sustainability of the system as a whole,” Wright said.

Hospitals and health care systems say the current cuts are painful but necessary.

Locally, HCA Healthcare — which includes Good Samaritan Hospital and Regional Medical Center in San Jose — is trying to “redeploy colleagues to alternative assignments based on patient care needs.” But where that’s not possible, the company has launched a new “pandemic pay” program. Employees keep their benefits but earn just 70 percent of their base pay for normal scheduled hours for up to seven weeks. Most workers can also supplement that with any PTO, or paid time off, they’ve saved up.

Sutter Health, which has hospitals and care centers throughout the Bay Area, has adopted a similar strategy. Employees “whose jobs have shifted due to changing patient demand are eligible to be redeployed throughout Sutter.” Some employees, however, are not being reassigned and instead are eligible for “up to 80 hours of disaster pay.”

Walnut Creek-based John Muir Health says it has “not cut the pay of any of our employees, but [we] have had to adjust hours in some cases.” Like other health care systems, they place employees whose hours have been cut in a labor pool to be reassigned elsewhere. Some inpatient nurses have been moved, for instance, to outpatient call centers to triage calls from people worried they have COVID-19.

A few local hospitals say they have so far avoided cuts. Both UCSF and the Santa Clara Valley Medical system say they have not had to scale back. But they appear to be the lucky few. And where the odd health care provider has continued to see patients in-person for nonessential services, such as dermatology clinics doing skin checks, they’ve been blasted for putting public health at risk.

The Bay Area is not alone in grappling with cuts. Hospitals and health care systems across the country are looking to curb costs, and in some cases cutting 401K matching, bonuses and other benefits in the process.

According to the health-focused news site Stat, the Maryland-based, private equity-backed company Alteon Health, which employs emergency medicine doctors, suspended retirement matching, paid time off and bonuses because of the coronavirus. Similar reports have surfaced in Massachusetts, Utah, Georgia and elsewhere.

The cuts, hospitals say, are to avoid even more drastic layoffs. Even though some intensive care units and other wards have seen an influx of coronavirus patients, other hallways are quiet. Everything from knee replacements and cataract surgeries to gastric bypasses and nose jobs have been canceled.

Outpatient clinics are silent. Even ER visits for non-coronavirus emergencies are down at many hospitals, with people fearing exposure and hearing constant messages to stay home, a separate worry for people like Wright who fear not everyone who really needs it will seek treatment. All of it has left hospitals hurting for revenue. According to one analysis, revenue at nonprofit hospitals fell by half in just a couple of weeks in March.

“Right now, hospitals are focused on one thing: caring for patients during this crisis,” Carmela Coyle, president of the California Hospital Association, said in a statement. “From a financial perspective, however, the immediate fiscal stress hospitals are facing pales in comparison to the long-term devastation that COVID-19 will wreak on California’s health care system as more and more hospitals are driven into the red financially.”

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California recalls N95 masks from Santa Clara company with $90 million state contract But health care workers say some of the systems haven’t been quick to redeploy them where they can help and they worry it will leave fewer doctors, nurses and other support staff for Bay Area residents suffering from strokes, heart attacks and other emergencies.

And if a surge in coronavirus patients does occur, they worry it will leave hospitals dealing with New York- and Italy-style tragedies — where hospitals have been overrun. It also leaves some health care workers, like millions of others across the country, struggling to make ends meet.

Hospitals are receiving some limited help. Blue Shield said it would offer $200 million in short-term loans, but the association says longer-term help once the pandemic is under control will be necessary.

“When this is behind us,” Coyle said, “we will need a state and national discussion about the impact of COVID-19 on the health care field, and how we can, collectively, begin to rebuild.”