Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) all India vice-president and ESI Corporation Board member Prasanta Nandi Chowdhury has expressed dissatisfaction at the undue delay in commencement of the construction of the 500-bed super-specialty ESI hospital at Sheelanagar in the city.
The CITU national leader, along with CITU State president Ch. Narasinga Rao and representatives of the CITU Greater Visakhapatnam City Committee, visited the site at Sheelanagar, where the foundation was laid five years ago for construction of the hospital on Monday.
Later, he also inspected the reconstruction of the ESI hospital at Malkapuram and sought provision of all amenities there. He also visited the ESI hospital at Health City at Arilova and interacted with the doctors there. He said that the ESI hospital in the city, which has 5.7 lakh card holders, has limited super-specialty facilities and was unable to cater to the needs of ESI subscribers and their family members due to shortage of doctors and staff. He demanded increasing the strength of specialist doctors and filling up of the vacancies of staff.
Mr. Narasinga Rao said that getting the benefits under ESI was the right of workers. The ESI Corporation has funds to the tune of over ₹1 lakh crore and added that it should be used for the health of workers.
He said that though new dispensaries were opened in the city, there was shortage of doctors and staff. Further, private referral hospitals were refusing to admit the ESI patients, as the dues of the private hospitals were not being cleared.
CITU city president R.K.S.V. Kumar, secretary M. Jaggu Naidu, steel union leader R.T. Raju, municipal union leaders G. Subba Rao, P. Venkata Reddy, M. Prasad, T. Nookaraju, Ratnam and Adinarayana were among those who were present.
