ESIC has expanded the scope of its health check up scheme to 15 cities
New Delhi:
Labour minister Bhupender Yadav on Saturday announced the expansion of the pilot scheme of annual preventive health check-up programme for employee state insurance corporation (ESIC) members who are aged above 40 years, to 15 cities from the existing five.
The minister had in December 2021, launched the scheme for ESIC members aged above 40 years in pilot mode at ESI hospitals in Ahmedabad, Faridabad, Hyderabad, Varanasi and Kolkata.
Addressing at 187th meeting of the ESIC, Mr Yadav said, “In the last (ESIC) meeting, we had approved the proposal that we will launch a pilot scheme for free medical check of insured persons of the age of 40 and above in five hospitals in Hyderabad, Faridabad, Varanasi, Kolkata and Ahmedabad. The results are satisfactory.” He added that now ESIC has approved the second phase of pilot and expanded it to total 15 cities.
However, the name of 10 cities to be added to the pilot project would be announced later.
Under this scheme, factories as well as micro small and medium enterprises will be considered as one unit and ESIC will coordinate with them for preventive health check-ups of the workers, he informed.
Mr Yadav urged industrial associations and trade unions to come together for facilitating free medical check up of MSMEs (in one bunch) in their area where workers employed in each unit is from 10 or 15.
On the disparity in scales of medical professionals and others personnel working in ESIC and ESIS (ESIC hospitals run by states) hospitals, the minister said that it would be bridged and that remuneration of doctors and staff will be revised.