Mangaluru: Among the hospitals which have refused to accept higher denomination notes after demonetisation, city’s Colaco Hospital is also one. Opposing this, few members of the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) conducted a protest in the hospital campus on Thursday, November 17 for causing inconvenience to the patients.
Local DYFI leader Imthiaz spoke about the scenario in the hospital where the authorities refused to accept cheques. “As many as 13 patients who were ready for discharge on Wednesday wanted to pay by cheques due to non-availability of cash. But the hospital refused to accept the cheques since they feared that they would bounce”, he alleged.
“The hospital accepted payments in cheques after DYFI took action in this matter on Wednesday evening. On Thursday, few more patients were ready to be discharged but owing to the shortage of valid notes, they could not pay their bills since the hospital authorities refused to accept cheques. The discharge summaries and prescriptions were withheld from the patients”, Imthiaz said.
There were notices put up on the hospital notice board which read, “As per the direction of the RBI and the Govt of India, Ministry of Finance, we do not accept Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes which have been demonetized”. In protest of this move, the DYFI members tore up the notices.
Speaking about DYFI’s talks with District Health Officer Dr. Ramakrishna, Imthiaz said that the officer was not able to help since the order from the government to accept defunct currency was only in government run health clinics and hospitals. “It is not mandatory for private hospitals to accept the notes since the government order did not hold good for them”, Imthiaz said while quoting the DHO.
