100-bed ESIC hospital to come up in Greater Noida, 2 dispensaries in Noida

NOIDA: The Employees' State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) hospital in Noida’s Sector 24 is ramping up facilities for the nearly 11 lakh insured workers and their families of Gautam Buddh Nagar district, taking the total to over 40 lakh people.
While two new dispensaries will come up in Noida’s sector 22 and 80 by next year, the only dispensary in Greater Noida is being ramped up and shifted to sector Alpha 2 and will become operational from July.
While the 300-bed ESIC hospital in Noida caters to the entire GB Nagar district with IPD facilities, a proposal for another 100-bed ESIC hospital is cleared for Greater Noida for which land location process is under way.
The hospital is expected to come up in next two years by end of 2022-early 2023 and take the load off Noida facility which currently caters to patients not only from GB Nagar but also Khora area of Ghaziabad, Bulandshahr, Mathura and Aligarh.
“We are currently running a two-doctor OPD dispensary in Greater Noida which we have taken on rent from GNIDA. This dispensary was already running near Pari Chowk commercial area and was converted from an Ayurvedic hospital that had stopped operating here. Now, this dispensary is being shifted to sector Alpha 2 with better facilities and more rooms from the earlier five. The new area is better located with easy access to public transport and is more open,” said Dr Balraj Bhandar director of ESIC hospital.
"Monthly rent for the facility is about Rs 1 lakh," the doctor added.
Dr Bhandar further adds that there is a plan for an ESIC hospital in Greater Noida as nearly 5 lakh insured persons (IP) workers come from this region.
“A 100-bed hospital is proposed in Greater Noida. We are currently looking for land for the hospital as we have nearly about 4-5 lakh IP workers in that area. We have been offered some sites which we will visit to finalise details. We will start with 50 beds initially and convert it into a 100-bed hospital later. For this, we will shift some staff from the Noida branch of the hospital. Once we demarcate the land, it will take about 1.5 to 2 years to complete construction work. Land finalisation is expected to complete this year followed by tendering from our head office Central Public Works Department(CPWD),” said Dr Bhandar.
In Noida, Dr Bhandar maintained that two new ESIC dispensaries are under construction in Sectors 80 and 22.
“These will be OPD facilities. Work order has been issued for them. Construction is expected to complete in one year’s time. These dispensaries will be bigger than the Greater Noida one and will have four to five doctors in one shift. Sector 22 comes in the industrial area so it will have a heavy footfall of about 5 lakh workers and families. We have a total of 11 lakh IP workers in GB Nagar and add their families a total of about 40-45 lakh people who avail the ESIC facility in the district,” said Dr Bhandar.
"Apart from the Sector 24 ESIC hospital, Noida currently has three ESIC OPD dispensaries which are operational in sectors 12, 56 and 57," he added.
Dr Brahmnish Sitara from the hospital said for the time being the 300-bed hospital in Sector 24 is the main facility for IP workers with a catchment of nearly 20 lakh people, including from Western UP.
“We get patients from as far as Mathura, Aligarh, Bulandshahr etc apart from GB Nagar. Earlier, we used to get patients from Sahibabad, Meerut, Hapur also before an ESIC facility opened in Ghaziabad and Sahibabad,” said Dr Sitara.
While the pre-Covid OPD footfall in Sector 24 hospital was 2,500-3,000, currently the hospital is getting about 2,000 patients per day in the OPD.
“Workers also come from Khora, East Delhi, Mayur Vihar etc,” said Dr Sitara.