Union Minister Sadananda Gowda peeved when private hospital refuses banned currency

The former Karnataka chief minister's younger brother, Baskar Gowda, had been admitted to the private hospital  with acute jaundice. He passed away on Tuesday.

Sadananda Gowda's nephew had requested the hospital to accept payment in the banned currencies - of rupees 500 and rupees 1000 -- for the bill of Rs 40,000 raised by the hospital, media reported.

Even Sadananda Gowda's requests were not complied with by the hospital, and the peeved former CM asked the hospital to give it in writing.

"One should be able to give old notes to hospitals and since this is not happening, it is becoming very difficult and it is causing inconvenience to patients," the minister was quoted as saying by NDTV.

"In such a situation, where the government has made a decision, there should be consideration for patients. This step has done nothing but has resulted in a lot of inconvenience to the public at large. I have asked them to give it to me in writing, the kind of inconvenience that was caused to them," he added.

The hospital's top executive Saghir Siddiqui told NDTV: "Our staff told them we cannot accept the demonetised notes. He asked for this in writing and we have given a written statement saying that we are strictly following the guidance issued by the union government and the RBI."

The minister later tweeted, "I took part in the survey on @narendramodi App & shared my opinion on the ban on old notes. You can also do it now!"

As the demonetisation took effect on Nov 8, the government had said that payments could be made to government hospitals with the banned notes for a limited period of time. Private hospitals were not included to prevent the routing of black money, media reported.

Image: Sadananda Gowda Twitter