Foreign nationals, city doctors face crisis due to demonetisation

The Bangladeshi nationals who had come to Kolkata for treatment faced huge problems as most of those families are carrying old notes of Rs 500 and some of them having Rs 1,000 as well.

Most of the Bangladeshi nationals came down to their knees after they came to know that government of India have cancelled these two kinds of currency notes.

The state government-run hospitals such as SSKM Medical College and Hospital or the private hospital like Tata Medical Centre were some of the places where the Bangladeshi nationals faced problems.

Many of them appealed to the Government of India to help them in this situation. “I sold my property there in my country and came here with my little child to treat her. 

Tell me what am I supposed to do now?” said a Bangladeshi national at Rajarhat, 

in front of the Tata Medical Centre.

However, the city doctors are in a great quandary because a sizable portion of them have currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 stored in their houses.

The doctors have been receiving that money from their home bound patients who gave that amount as fee.

However, as most of those doctors maintain busy daily schedules, they were unable to keep those hard cash in the bank.

After the declaration of demonetisation of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 and proclamation of issue of new currency note, those doctors now cannot exchange the old notes in the banks.“I have to maintain very a busy schedule in my chamber and my hospital. 

I do not have any time to change those notes in the bank. My wife is a doctor too. She also has a similar problem. I have around Rs 10,000 cash in all those denomination of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000. My wife has such kinds of notes collectively of Rs 5,000” said a city-based doctor.