The Union Labour Ministry is likely to come out with a legislation extending the benefits of ESI scheme to workers in the unorganized sector. The legislation is to be introduced in the Budget Session of Parliament.

By extending the benefits of the ESI Scheme to the unorganized sector, the ministry hopes to make the ESIC the largest organization in the world providing healthcare. ESIC has already announced the setting up of state level model hospitals and has earmarked Rs 100 crore for the purpose. Efforts are on to make ESIC a role model in its area of operation.

The model hospitals will have an Indian system of medicine wing attached to it. The new move is meant for popularizing the alternate systems of medicine like Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha, Homeopathy etc. in order to meet the health care needs of a large number of people in rural areas. The Labour Minister is known to have called upon the policy planners to give top priority to the revival of traditional system of medicine, which would take care of a large number of ailments at a very cheap cost. He was of the opinion that the Government must give full recognition to various streams of the Indian system of medicine.

The availability of doctors per thousand population in India is still one-fourth when compared to developed countries and most of them are based in urban areas. In these circumstances, patients in rural and far-flung areas have to travel long distances for getting medical treatment and some of them even lose their lives before emergency medical care becomes available to them.

The ministry felt that the revival of traditional system of medicine would be of immense help in changing this scenario. ESIC is to play a major role in promoting ISM in the coming days. The Corporation is planning to come out with a booklet containing prescriptions in ISM for various common ailments to each of its beneficiaries. Health melas are also planned to create awareness among masses about ISM.

The ESIC has achieved considerable progress in setting of model hospitals at Hyderabad, Ludhiana, Jaipur and Chandigarh. Another 11 ones are in the pipeline.

ESIC has decided to set up one Model Hospital in each state. The model hospitals are being identified out of the existing hospitals to provide all modern infrastructure facilities, staff and equipment as per E.S.I. norms and to act as referral hospitals for the entire state to provide state of art secondary care services.

The model hospital will have all general specialties along with support services of radiology, laboratory, store and pharmacy, operation theatres, medical records, dietary services, laundry, CSSD, engineering services, ambulance services, telephone, house keeping, horticultural development works, waste management systems, facility for training, library etc. To facilitate community services, staff accommodation, cafeteria, parking areas, recreation facilities etc., shall also be provided. To start with, staff to manage these hospitals will be made available on deputation from the state government for an initial period of three years.

To ensure proper functioning of the model hospitals, the corporation would have a quality assurance programme also in place to monitor the functioning of various activities of the Model Hospitals.

As on date the ESI Scheme stands implemented at about 700 centres in the country and covers about 84 lakh insured persons. The health care facilities are provided through countrywide network of 180 ESI hospitals and annexes and 5000 smaller service outlets such as ESI dispensaries and panel clinics etc.