Authorities from the Visakha Institute of Medical Sciences (VIMS), the designated State COVID-19 hospital for north Andhra region, had sent a representation to the State government to denotify the hospital into B-Category hospital.
VIMS Director K. Satya Varaprasad said that he sought the government to allow them to treat both COVID-19 and other patients.
He said that if the government permits, 300 dedicated beds would be reserved for COVID-19 patients and another 300 beds would be used for other cases.
“As on Tuesday, the number of COVID-19 patients being treated in VIMS was zero and all beds are vacant. On Monday, there were two patients and they were discharged,” he said.
According to Dr. Varaprasad, a number of people from surrounding regions, Vizianagaram and even Odisha use the services of VIMS. Reopening of the regular services would help them a lot, he said.
Many COVID-19 hospitals in the district have been converted into B-Category hospitals after seeing a steady decline in the cases. Since VIMS is a State-COVID-19 hospital and not under the control of the District Collector, the authorities are in touch with the State government.
As of now, CSR block at King George Hospital (KGH) is serving a number of COVID-19 patients from the district.
It was learnt that the representation sent to the government by VIMS officials is still under consideration.
