Yadav launches annual health check-up programme for ESIC members aged above 40
New Delhi: Taking a cue from Union Health Ministry's Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS), Union Labour Minister Bhupender Yadav on Saturday launched an annual preventive health check-up programme for the Employees' State Insurance Corporation's insured members aged 40 years and above in pilot mode at ESI hospitals in Ahmedabad, Faridabad, Hyderabad and Kolkata.
Besides, a proposal was also cleared for the construction of a 500-bed ESIC Hospital at Gurugram (Manesar) for expansion of services of the existing 100-bed hospital during the ESIC's 186th meeting, which was chaired by the Union Minister on Saturday.
Talking to Millennium Post after the meeting, Yadav said, "We have started a pilot project under which all insured persons of ESIC, who are of 40 years or above, would be screened for free every year. The objective of the project is to make India disease-free to accomplish the dream of "Swasth Bharat". We have around 3.5 crore insured beneficiaries."
"The programme has been launched to identify the life-taking diseases at its initial stage so that it can be treated at an early stage and prevent any casualty due to the disease," he said, adding that this pilot would be further expanded in coming days with the increase in the number of insured persons to five crore with implementation of Social Security Code.
In contrary to Health Minister's CGHS, as per the minister, only insured persons would be covered under the programme and not the dependents of the ESIC beneficiary. However, Yadav "assured" that the scheme would be extended to dependents after analysing the outcomes of the pilot project. The minister further said that the ESIC also wants to improve its hospitals to super speciality ones so that referral to others can be reduced in the coming days. Yadav also talked about the rollout of a mobile app 'Santusht' for ESIC beneficiaries for improving the delivery of services.
"The construction of two ESIC hospitals – one at Bihta in Patna and Alwar in Rajasthan -- has been completed and soon these would be inaugurated," he said.
