ESIC hospital to get 200 more beds, structural audit proposed

Tribune News Service

Nitin Jain

Ludhiana, January 17

The ESI Corporation (ESIC) Model Hospital in Ludhiana will soon get 200 more beds and will be developed as the state-of-the-art facility with 500-bed capacity, the Centre has announced.

An announcement to this effect was made by Union Minister of Labour and Employment Bhupender Yadav while acceding to the demand raised by Rajya Sabha MP from Ludhiana Sanjeev Arora.

Besides, the minister has held a meeting of officers from his ministry and the state government in Chandigarh to discuss and finalise the plan to establish six new ESIC Hospitals in the state, including another one in Ludhiana district, besides other demands of Punjab pertaining to the welfare of labour and employees.

The development assumes significance as the Ludhiana ESIC hospital with 262-bed capacity was not only lacking beds but also other facilities to provide treatment and medical facilities to almost 12 lakh workers employed in various establishments covered under the ESIC, which runs the lone hospital in the state’s biggest and largest district, in terms of area and population, since its inception in 1969.

Arora told The Tribune here on Wednesday that Yadav had promised him to almost double the capacity of Ludhiana ESIC Model Hospital and provide state-of-the-art facilities here during a meeting with him in New Delhi recently.

“He has promised to upgrade Ludhiana ESIC Model Hospital to the state-of-the-art facility and increase its bed capacity to 500,” the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) member in the Upper House of Parliament from Punjab disclosed.

Divulging the proposed upgrade plan and outcome of the survey conducted by the Centre to this effect, Arora said the ESIC hospital was spread over 10.3 acres and at present was catering to 4.3 lakh insured persons.

“The hospital building was constructed in two parts. The old block, in which the administrative block and OPD are running, had been declared unsafe, as per the structural audit report conducted by the NIT in Jalandhar. However, during a site visit by the Chief Engineer, it has been observed that the old building was in a good condition and there were no sign of any distress/ deterioration of the building,” he revealed.

To get the second opinion from another agency/institute, the proposal for fresh structural audit has been sent to the IIT, Roorkee, and IIT, Ropar.

The RS MP said the new hospital building block was safe as per the structural audit report and all wards, emergency, ICU, operation theatre, labour room, laundry and medical store were running from there.

“Since as per the local building by-laws, the whole land is occupied and there is no scope for new construction in the land, the only way of expansion is possible through vertical expansion or demolition of any existing building,” Arora said, adding that the final decision on the expansion of the hospital campus will be taken following the fresh structural audit report.

Centre affirmative to demands: MP

Arora said the union minister was affirmative to the demands raised by him and assured to take care of all the issues shortly.

Arora apprised Yadav that the lone ESIC Model Hospital in Ludhiana was established in 1969 when the number of workers was not even 10 per cent of the present workforce in the district. “Besides progressing in Ludhiana, the industry has also spread to adjoining areas of Khanna, Sahnewal and Samrala, following which there is a dire need to have another ESIC Hospital between Khanna and Sahnewal on the NH-44 or nearby area so that industrial workers and their dependents can be catered to in a better way,” he demanded while hoping that the new hospital, if established, will also be able to cater to the industries of Mandi Gobindgarh and Fatehgarh Sahib districts.

On the state front, the parliamentarian told the minister that a proposal from the state government to set up six new ESIC hospitals in the state was pending with the Centre. “Punjab is in dire need of more ESIC hospitals as the state has a single bed for 4,100 insured workers under the ESIC, which is almost double the national average of one bed for 2,300 insured workers,” he pointed out.

The state government had proposed to set up ESIC Hospitals at six locations — Doraha in Ludhiana, Sector 66 in Mohali, Lalru in Mohali, Rajpura in Patiala, Malerkotla, and Bathinda.

The minister said the setting up of ESIC hospitals was an ongoing process and was based on the number of insured persons in an area in accordance with the norms of the ESIC.

The state-wise status of beds at hospitals run by the ESIC showed that the state has 12,16,430 workers insured under the ESIC for whom there were 300 sanctioned beds, which work out to be 4,055 workers per ESIC hospital bed. It was almost 74.63 per cent more than the national average of 2,322 workers per bed.

State’s ESI worker load high

The ESIC worker load in the state was almost 75 per cent more than national average.

Fifth in country

Punjab ranked fifth in the country for worker load per ESI hospital bed. While Uttarakhand has the maximum worker load of 6,046 per bed, Maharashtra stood second with 5,701 workers. Tamil Nadu ranked third with 5,477 workers while Odisha was placed fourth with 4,237 workers per bed.

Minimum load in Delhi

Delhi has minimum load per bed of 633, followed by Bihar 835, Jammu and Kashmir 1,230, Chandigarh 1,302, Telangana 1,360, Jharkhand 1,419, Rajasthan 1,713, Kerala 1,891, Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Tripura, Manipur, Mizoram, and Arunachal Pradesh 2,000, Karnataka 2,163, Uttar Pradesh 2,366, Haryana 2,442, Chhattisgarh 2,534, Gujarat 2,615, West Bengal 2,824, Madhya Pradesh 3,223, and Himachal Pradesh 3,462.

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