Balasore: There is a provision for free healthcare under Employees’ State Insurance for employees working in private companies, but this facility has flopped in Balasore as there is no special ESI hospital. The Centre had handed over the facility to the state in 2014.
No special ESI hospital has been set up in this coastal district. The state has roped in two private nursing homes for the four districts of Balasore, Bhadrak, Mayurbhanj and Keonjhar to provide healthcare to private sector employees.
However, thousands of private sector employees of the four districts are unable to access proper ESI care from these two nursing homes – Sriram Hospital and Jyoti Hospital. The nursing homes are not receiving funds for ESI services.
ESI hospitals should have specialist doctors, but ESI service is now provided by post-graduate doctors in most cases. As a result, there is a problem in properly diagnosing diseases.
Sriram Hospital has been functioning since eight years, providing ESI services. The hospital is bound by a fresh agreement to provide ESI services from March 2017 till March 14 2019. However, the ESI has not provided any funds.
The hospital authorities alleged that around Rs 9 lakh is pending with the ESI authorities, but officials at the ESI office in Bhubaneswar are delaying clearing dues. Efforts made to get the reactions of officials at the ESI hospital (Balia) and ESI inspector office at Ranipatana were not successful.
PNN
