Kiwi-born former NRL prop Mose Masoe will have to continue rehabilitation from home after being asked to leave his hospital in England to make room for patients with Covid-19.
Masoe, who is the Hull Kingston Rovers co-captain, has been recovering after suffering a career-ending spinal injury in January.
He has make remarkable progress since, but the 30-year-old Samoa international said he was not ready to go home after being told he would be discharged from the Wakefield's Pinderfields Hospital in the next 72 hours.
"They've got to clear out a lot of wards to get in the people who have coronavirus so a lot of us have to go home," Masoe said on the Hull KR website.
"I'm not really ready to go home at all.
"It will be nice to get home so I can spend some time with my kids but there's a lot of things I can't do myself, like going to the toilet and things like that.
"I don't want to put a burden on my missus."
Hundreds of non-critical patients in the UK are being discharged to make room for coronavirus patients as the pandemic overruns the country's health system.
Masoe, who played for the Sydney Roosters and Penrith Panthers at the NRL, urged "selfish" people to stay home and stop spreading the virus.
"We need people to stay home so we can get back into the hospital to do rehab," he said.
"People need to stop being selfish because we've felt the effects already.
"It's the first time in the world you can save lives by just staying home watching TV or playing PlayStation - that's my frustration with people who aren't listening.
"They [his family] have been doing the right thing and staying away. I haven't seen them for two weeks.
"[But] I'm gutted to be going home because I wanted to keep my progression going."
• Covid19.govt.nz: The Government's official Covid-19 advisory website