Modi Govt’s decision of demonetization has indeed affected lives of common people to a great extent and even though it’s said that this decision will prove to be helpful in controlling corruption and black money later on, it has augmented problems in carrying out daily life activities.
Due to this decision, the family of a 35-yr dengue patient in Kolkata had to face a lot of problems since they didn’t have enough cash in the denominations of Rs. 100 and Rs. 50 to pay the bills of a city private hospital.
The incident took place on Wednesday at BP Poddar Hospital and Research Centre in New Alipore when relatives of Sukanta Chhaule were asked for arranging Rs 40,000 for discharge. It created an atmosphere of panic and chaos in view of the fact that they didn’t have either sufficient cash in the acceptable denominations or cards.
Hence, they requested the hospital staff for accepting the old notes; however, the plead was denied at once. Not only this, the hospital refused to accept the cheque offered by them.
Thereafter, the Chhaules contacted neighbors, friends and relatives over WhatsApp to arrange for change and surprisingly, they received an overwhelming response. Shortly by 3am, they could collect Rs. 40,000 which they wrapped in cellophane packets inside a huge bag of jute and reached the hospital on Thursday morning.
This naturally shocked the authorities who at first denied accepting coins and instead asked them for a DD (Demand Draft). However, they had to change their minds after being threatened of an FIR by the Chhaules.
Six staff members of the hospital took 3 long hours to count the coins and finally at 3pm, Sukanta had been discharged.
In the words of Sukanta’s brother Snehashish,
“We had pleaded with the hospital authorities to accept the old notes or a cheque. But they refused. So we thought about collecting the coins, which, we knew would be difficult but not impossible.”
Talking about the overwhelming response on WhatsApp, Sukanta’s brother-in-law Tapas Ray said,
“While many gave us all the coins they had at home, others handed us their children’s piggy banks. We kept receiving the coins till midnight.”
Snehashish added,
“At 11am sharp, we reached the hospital gate. But the authorities said they wouldn’t accept coins and demanded a bank draft instead. We stood firm and told them this was the only way we would pay since it was legitimate currency. An official was still adamant but relented when we threatened to take police help.”
Guards of the hospital purportedly mistreated cameraman of a TV channel when he was trying to record counting of the coins. This caused him a head injury for which he had been admitted to Medica Superspecialty Hospital.
Unlike BP Poddar Hospital and Research Centre, several hospitals such as Medica Superspecialty, Fortis, Apollo Gleneagles and AMRI Hospitals were little kind towards payments.
Do you think it was wrong on the part of the hospital to be so rigid in terms of payments or do you feel they did the right thing? Share your views in this connection in the comments section below.
