30 ESI hospitals to offer chemotherapy in boon to workers

Striving to provide better and specialised healthcare for people enrolled in Employees State Insurance Corporation, the Government has started chemotherapy services in 30 hospitals under ESIC.

Bhupender Yadav, the Union Minister for Labour and Employment, launched the services in the hospitals across the country during the 191^st meeting of the ESI Corporation at ESIC Headquarters in New Delhi today.

Speaking on the occasion, Yadav said this was a step in the direction of realising Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of all-round welfare of workers during India’s Amrit Kaal. The commencement of in-house chemotherapy services will greatly benefit insured workers and their dependents who will now have access to better cancer treatment at ease.

According to www.cancer.net, “chemotherapy is the use of drugs to destroy cancer cells. This type of cancer treatment works by keeping cancer cells from growing, dividing, and making more cells. It can be used as a treatment for many different cancers.”

The Minister also inaugurated a Control Room with Dashboards of ESIC which will ensure better monitoring of resources and beds at the hospitals, current status of ongoing construction projects, etc.

To cater to the need of skilled medical professionals in hospitals, ESIC will take further its work in the field of medical education. For this Yadav said new ESIC Medical Colleges and Hospitals will be established after assessing the requirement. At present ESIC has established and manages eight medical colleges, two dental colleges, two nursing colleges and one para-medical college.

At the meeting, in principle approval was given to set up 15 new ESI hospitals, 78 ESI dispensaries, increase in bed strength at ESIC hospital, Beltola, Assam, ESIC Medical College & Hospital, K. K. Nagar, Chennai, Tamil Nadu and ESIC Medical College & Hospital, Faridabad, Haryana.

The Minister released Citizen Charter, Manual of Audit & Accounts of ESIC, Referral Policy and Equipment Policy during the programme and also felicitated 5 iGoT learners of ESIC who topped on the iGOT  (Karmyogi Bharaat) learning platform from the ESIC officers located in Rajasthan, Kerala and Bengaluru.