I think that's sensible because if your dad is high risk & he was infected well the outcome could be grim.
Grim for my mum too - her condition not only has her on immunosuppressants, but her lungs (and kidneys) are basically dying. If dad got infected...ugh.
What I think he's trying to negotiate is to run one of the brain injury facilities, which is in lockdown like our nursing homes. That's a job he used to do with a couple of brain injury specialists and a troop of registrars, and the registrars would be reallocated to high need hospital settings.
The upshot would be that he'd be ridiculously overworked (doing the job of multiple doctors), but in a facility where his risk of exposure would hopefully be minimal. It's impossible to limit exposure to zero for anyone that leaves their house, but I think he's weighing that option up. Because it would free up a number of staff to work in our emergency, short stay and ICU wards, but without him personally having high risk of exposure.
He's due to arrive home tomorrow. What is usually a week/fortnight trip has only taken him a few days, because caravan parks are refusing to admit anyone and he's just been sleeping in truck stops.
It's all pretty grim. I've had at least one nightmare of my parents ending up in the thousand-odd bed temp hospital they're setting up at the showgrounds, surrounded by dying people, not allowed visitors (dramatic much!?). But I'm trying to stay optimistic that the virus is spreading slow enough that if he does get exposed, it will be once they're already trialling some of these potential treatments.
As a health worker he'll be tested on a regular basis - at least, that's what they're saying. Either way, he'll end up helping out somewhere. He has plenty of faults, but I know his history of the places he's agreed to go work in the past. He simply won't be able to stay at home and just watch it on tv - not even for the sake of my mum.
I have mixed feelings about that. But it is what it is. We're in a pandemic, and we don't have enough health workers to go round at the best of times.