Bengaluru, DHNS: A total of five patients have been treated under the ‘Mukhyamantri Santwana Harish Scheme’, the Karnataka government’s new health plan for accident victims, which was launched on March 8.

The scheme provides for cashless treatment of up to Rs 25,000 at 280 hospitals across the State within 48 hours of an accident.

It is named after Harish Nanjappa, the man from Tumakuru district who donated his eyes immediately after his body was cut into half in a ghastly road accident last month.

The first beneficiary of the scheme was treated at Pragathi Hospital in Puttur town of Dakshina Kannada district.

The four others are being treated at two different hospitals in Bengaluru, according to officials of Suvarna Arogya Suraksha Trust which is implementing the scheme.

In Bengaluru, one of the beneficiaries was an elderly man from Ramanagaram, who was treated at the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Chest Diseases (RGICD) on Friday.

He sustained a chest injury after falling from a 15-foot-tall tree.

“He has recovered and will be discharged on Monday,” the doctors treating him said. Another beneficiary is from the same hospital, a 28-year-old man who was injured while trying to lift a heavy object.

350-400 cases per year

Dr Shashidhar Buggi, director, RGICD, said the institute reported 350-400 cases of chest injuries every year and most of the patients were poor.

“If a chest injury is not treated in the Golden Hour, the chances of death are high. It may also lead to long-term complications,” he said.

The institute has also proposed to treat another accident victim, a 61-year-old man from Nelamangala who suffered multiple fractures, under the new scheme.

The other two accident victims are being treated at BGS Global Hospitals.

On Saturday, a team was sent to attend to victims of a road accident in Davangere, which resulted in three deaths and two injuries.
‘Minor accident victims decline benefits’

Victims of minor accidents are refusing treatment under the new scheme to avoid filing police complaints, according to Dr P Bore Gowda, Executive Director, Suvarna Arogya Suraksha Trust.

In a case in Mangaluru, the accident victim didn’t want to enrol as a beneficiary fearing a police complaint, though he was approached. “In minor accidents, patients often do not wish to approach the police. Under such circumstances, we take an undertaking from them that they refused treatment though we reached out to them,” he said.

Photo credit: DHNS