visakhapatnam while the district administration and the health department bring in more private hospitals under the ambit of covid19 care the treatment of noncovid19 patients suffering from other ailments or waiting for elective surgeries has taken a hit the nonavailability of manpower at hospitals has made treatment and tests for nonemergencies routine ailments and elective surgeries a challenging task several patients complained that many private clinics and small hospitals are closed while those that are open are reluctant to treat noncovid19 casesa senior citizen recently admitted to a small private hospital near zilla parishad junction for agerelated complications had to vacate after hospital authorities were instructed to partially convert the institution into a covid19 care centre along with the senior citizen some other patients with chronic but nonemergency ailments had to look for an alternativespecial officer for covid19 northcoastal ap dr pv sudhakar said that of the 218 hospitals registered under the district medical and health office dmho 33 have been selected for covid19 care as category a hospitals entirely dedicated to covid19 treatment or as category b hospitals partially dedicated to covid19 treatment around 180 hospitals are free to do electives or smaller surgeries and other noncovid19 cases hospitals with less than 50 beds or the smaller hospitals have not been converted to covid19 care instituteshowever president of andhra pradesh private hospitals and nursing homes association apnavizag chapter dr padmavathi naidu said the problems faced by noncovid19 patients are going to escalate in future even minor elective surgeries cannot be postponed indefinitely as it would give rise to complications if delayed inordinately some clinics have closed down since the lockdown in smaller hospitals and nursing homes under apna around 80 of staff including paramedics and class iv staff have stopped coming fearing covid19 so with severe staff crunch and the pandemic around noncovid19 elective patients are facing a tough time