Mysuru: Condemning the revision in the price of services offered at the state-run Krishna Rajendra (KR) Hospital, BJP leaders, including MLAs SA Ramadas and L Nagendra on Monday said that the move would hit the underprivileged sections of society. The leaders, who interacted with the media, announced that they would hold a protest in front of KR Hospital to urge the government to reverse the hike in prices, which came into effect on March 1.“The hike in user fees in government hospitals, including at KR Hospital will inconvenience poor patients. The government should roll it back immediately,” said Chamaraja MLA Nagendra.Krishnaraja MLA Ramadas also lashed out at the state government for its flawed implementation of the Ayushman Bharat scheme. “Unlike other states in the country, Karnataka adopted a different tack to provide benefits of the central scheme to citizens. In other states, beneficiaries of Ayushman Bharat can avail of its benefits in all hospitals, but in Karnataka, this facility is restricted only to empanelled hospitals. As a result, patients are put to a lot of hardship,” Ramadas said.The Krishnaraja MLA and former minister said that, in Karnataka, the rules stipulated that a patient first visit a government hospital, and only if the state-run facility could not offer the treatment necessary, could he or she be referred to a private institution. Citing an example of a youngster who suffered a fracture, Ramadas said, “He was asked to receive treatment at both government and private institutions owing to which he suffered multiple complications. This is ridiculous.”Ramadas also charged chief minister HD Kumaraswamy with misleading the public by giving wrong figures on the number of below poverty line beneficiaries of health schemes in Karnataka. “The Karnataka government has pegged the number of BPL card holders at 52 lakh, whereas the actual figure is 1.2 crore,” he said.The BJP leaders said that they would launch the protest at 10am on Tuesday. The other demand the BJP activists had was the issuance of health cards to all beneficiaries.

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