The Employees State Insurance (ESI) model hospital in Bangalore will soon become a referral centre for all ESI hospitals in the state.

In April 2003, the Karnataka government has handed over the ESI Hospital to the ESI Corporation (ESIC), New Delhi. But now ESIC has invested Rs. 1.25 core to upgrade the facility, which was now being handed over to the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP).

The central government has agreed in principle to reorganize the ESI healthcare structure in Karnataka. It is learnt that at the All-India Labour Conference held recently, the ESIC had recommended reorganizing 15 dispensaries of Bangalore, which had less than 1,000 patients. Such dispensaries were either to be closed and the staff transferred to the remaining 22 dispensaries or merged with those dispensaries whose patients' intake was slightly higher than them.

Many facilities at the hospital were either underutilized or in a state of despair. "Since we took over, the average number of out-patients treated each month has gone up from 20,000 to 25,000 and in-patients from 970 to 1050," Ajay Dua, director, general, ESIC told Pharmabiz.com

The ESIC sanctioned Rs. 3 crore a year to the regional directorate to spend on patients who need super specialty care such as cardiac or kidney emergencies. The patients do not have to pay first but they get reimbursed for the treatment. They need to produce their identity card and an authorization letter from ESI and get treated, the payment would be made directly to the hospital, he said.

Among the super specialty centers that come under the arrangement are the Jayadeva Institute of Cardiology, NIMHANS, MS Ramaiah Hospital, Manipal Hospital, Narayana Hrudayalaya, and the Rotary TTK Blood Bank.

The hospital, which is the largest ESI medical facility in the state, was handed over to ESIC, informed Dua. "The hospital was not well maintained and fully occupied at the time of transfer and the government had spent Rs. 10-11 crore annually on its upkeep."

As it was a strain on the financial resources, the Karnataka government decided to transfer the hospital as per the provisions of the Employees State Insurance Corporation Act 1948.

Elaborating on the State Employees State Insurance Corporation's plans for the hospital. Dua informed that medicinal and surgical equipment worth Rs. 1.25 crore were sanctioned and more drugs were available at the hospital.
The Corporation has also added four new units to the hospital, which includes an Intensive Care Unit, neo natal unit, dental unit and a blood bank. In addition it has also sanctioned a new 500MV X-ray machine.

The emergency ward has been replenished with the pipe oxygen supply, he added. The Hospital has also been sanctioned a homeopathy and yoga center with therapeutic massage center facility. The Corporation plans to upgrade the hospital into a center of excellence in providing quality health care to the workers in the organized sector.

The medical personnel at the hospital have been offered the option of staying on. Doctors who stayed on had to give up private practice and they would instead be paid 30 per cent of their basic pay extra as non-practicing allowance, said Dua.