ESI Corporation under the Chairmanship of Shri Bhupender Yadav, Minister of Labour& Employment, Environment, Forest & Climate Change, in its 188^th meeting held today has taken significant decisions to augment the medical care and service delivery mechanism across the country.

It has been decided that ESI Scheme will be implemented in the entire country by the end of year 2022. Presently, ESI Scheme is fully implemented in 443 districts and partially implemented in 153 districts, whereas 148 districts are not covered under ESI Scheme. By the end of year 2022, the partially implemented and non-implemented districts across the country will be fully covered. The medical care services will be provided through establishing new DCBOs, by empanelingmIMP and tie-up Hospitals of Ayushman Bharat PMJAY.

ESI Corporation has decided to set up 23 new 100 bedded hospitals across the country.Sixhospitals in Maharashtra at Palghar, Satara, Pen, Jalgaon, Chakan andPanvel; fourhospitals in Haryana at Hisaar, Sonepat, Ambala andRohatak;twohospitalseach in the state of Tamil Nadu (at Chengalpattu and Erode), Uttar Pradesh (Moradabad and Gorakhpur) and Karnataka (Tumkurand Udupi), one ESI hospital each in the state of Andhra Pradesh (Nellore), Chhatisgarh (Bilaspur), Goa(Mulgaon Goa), Gujarat (Sanad), Madhya Pradesh (Jabalpur), Odisha (Jharsuguda) and West Bengal (Kharagpur)will be set-up by ESIC. Besides these Hospitals, 5 doctors’ dispensaries at 62 places will also be opened. 48 dispensaries in Maharashtra, 12 dispensaries in Delhi and 2 dispensaries in Haryana willbe opened. These hospitals and dispensaries will ensure the delivery of quality medical care service to the insured workers and their dependents in the close vicinity of their residence and will also enhance clientele satisfaction. 

To fulfil the growing need for skilled manpower in Health Care sectors and narrow the existing gap between the demand and supply of skilled manpower, ESIC is going to start Certificate Courses in 10 disciplines in three of its Medical Colleges at Faridabad, Sanathnagar (Hyderabad) and K.K.Nagar (Chennai)  for Health Care Link Workers, as a pilot project.

To provide quality medical care, ESIC is augmenting its infrastructure by setting-up new hospitals and upgrading the existing ones. As setting up new hospitals takes time, ESIC in its meeting decidedto allow insured workers and their family members to avail cashless medical care services through Ayushman Bharat PMJAY empaneledhospitals in all the areas where ESI Scheme is partially implemented or to be implemented or where ESIC existing health care facilities are limited.Beneficiaries of ESI Scheme in 157 districts are already availing cashless medical care through this tie-up arrangement. This decision will immensely help beneficiaries to avail cashless medical services in the remaining districts.

Union Labour Minister, Shri Bhupendra Yadav informed that 6400 vacancies for different posts have been advertised by ESIC in last eight months which includes more than 2000 Doctors/Teaching faculty.

It was decidedthatRadiation Oncology and Nuclear Medicine Departments at three ESIC MedicalCollege & Hospitals at Sanathnagar, Faridabad and Chennai will be established. It will be the for the first time that such services will be made available at ESIC owned facility. 

Two Cath Labs at ESIC Medical College & Hospital at Sanathnagar, Telangana and Alwar, Rajasthan will be established. Recently, one Cath Lab have made functional at ESIC Medical College & Hospital at Faridabad, Haryana.

Decision was also taken to upgrade the existing 200 bedded ESIC Hospital, Pune to 500 bedded Hospital. The upgradation of this Hospital will benefit 7 Lakh Workers and their family members in Pune. 

ESIC in the meeting also decided to set-up a new 100 bedded ESI Hospital at Ernakulam, Kerala. This Hospital will be equipped with all the modern health care facilities as per ESIC Norms.  The multi-story Hospital will also house Sub-Regional Office, Ernakulum.

Other Important Decisions taken in Meeting included improving the medical care services of Insured Workers and their family members, ESIC has decided to take over the State Govt. run ESIS Hospital, Sonagiri, Bhopal to directly run it under its administrative control and also bridging the gap ofnon availability of Specialist/Super Specialists in State Govt. run ESIS Hospitals, ESIC will now engage required Specialist/Super Specialists for ESIS Hospitals. Over all expenditure against engaging these Specialist/Super Specialists will also be borne by ESIC. It will ensure availability of specialist/super specialist services in ESIS Hospitals.

A deliberation on Swasthya se Samridhihad also taken place yesterday under the chairmanship of Union Labour Minister, Shri Bhupender Yadav,in which the matters of providing social security to workers, bringing more workers under the ambit of ESI Scheme, service delivery augmentation, etc. were discussed.

Shri RameswarTeli, Minister of State for Labour& Employment&Petroleum & Natural Gas, and Vice-Chairman, ESIC,Ms. Dola Sen, MP (Rajya Sabha), Shri Ram Kripal Yadav, MP (Lok Sabha),Shri Mukhmeet S. Bhatia, Director General, ESIC, Shri R. K. Gupta, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Labour& Employment, Members representing Employers’ Associations and Employees’ Unions and Principal Secretaries, Labour/Health of State Govts.attended the meeting.

*****

HS/PD/TK