With an initiative to meet the increasing demand of medical professionals in the country, the Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) is firming up its plans to foray into the education sector on a big scale. The corporation plans to set up eleven medical colleges in various parts of the country including one in Tamil Nadu.

As part of its new initiative, the ESIC will start post graduate degree (MD & MS) and diploma courses from next academic year. For the first time ESI Corporation is starting educational courses meant for good quality health care services. The new initiative will be in association with some super specialty hospitals in every state, Dr J P Bhasne, medical commissioner of the ESI Corporation told Pharmabiz.

All over India, the ESIC has identified 12 medical colleges for starting the PG Degree and diploma courses in association with the respective state governments. As a whole, a number of 352 seats are in the project for the three year degree courses and 97 seats for the two-year diploma courses. As per the condition that the ESIC wants to put forward at the time of admission, on successful completion of the courses, the candidates have to serve in the Corporation's hospitals in the country for a few years, he said.

The PG courses are intended to commence from April 2009 and the functioning of medical colleges from the academic year, 2010. Proposals are also there to start nursing colleges and para-medical courses by the Corporation, it is learnt.

He said that there will be no financial assistance from the state governments for these projects and the entire amount for the project will be funded by the Corporation. "Having accepted the Essentiality Certificates and Letter of Consent from each state government, we will approach the Medical Council of India (MCI) for their approval. The process is going on. However, we are expecting that by the end of October or November this year all the processes can be completed. The visit of the MCI would also be over by then", Dr Bhasne told Pharmabiz.

The medical commissioner said this is a joint initiative of the Union Labour Ministry and the Union Health Ministry. The corporation has already received the go ahead signal from the health ministry for starting both the courses and the medical colleges.

Subject to the proposal, the Chennai wing of the ESIC has identified two of its hospitals located at K K Nagar and at Ayanavaram as the centres for commencing PG Courses and they will be attached to Kilpauk Medical College (KMC) and Madras Medical College (MMC) respectively for assistance and additional facilities.

In Chennai, ESIC plans to conduct the courses in seventeen specializations from next academic year. The corporation has received the Essentiality Certificate and Letter of Consent from the State Government. "The scheme is in very early stage. We are going ahead with full confidence that we can start the courses on time as decided by the ESICI," additional commissioner and regional director of Chennai ESI Corporation, S Saramma Thomas, told Pharmabiz.

For academic and administrative purposes the ESI Corporation has made a tie-up with MGR Medical University and some other super specialty hospitals in the state capital. But the Corporation is yet to receive the agreement of tie up from MGR Medical University and is waiting for the final approval from the Medical Council of India (MCI). The Corporation is making all arrangements in complying with the norms put forward by the Medical Council for getting their green signal for the go ahead.

In the KMC at Ayanavaram, courses on specializations such as general medicine, general surgery, microbiology, pathology, biochemistry, paediatrics, TB and chest, anaesthesiology, and obstetrics & gynaecology will be started.

In the Madras Medical College, general medicine, general surgery, paediatrics, TB and chest, DVL, psychiatry, anaesthesiology and obstetrics & gynaecology are the subjects selected for specialization.
Those who have completed MBBS can apply for the three year and two year courses and the admission will be held on merit basis. The faculty and other professors will be outsourced from various medical colleges to handle the classes.

Sources from the Corporation said, fifty percent of the total seats will be filled from the working doctors of ESI Corporation, for which the selection list will be prepared the Corporation itself and the rest fifty percent will be filled in from the list supposed to issue by the state government.

Besides the head quarters at New Delhi, the ESI Corporation has 23 regional offices and 12 sub-regional offices at Vijayawada, Vadodara, Surat, Hubli, Pune, Nagpur, Coimbatore, Madurai, Tirunelveli, Noida, Varanasi and Barrackpore and 844 local offices and cash offices all over the country for the administration of the scheme.