Karnataka - Bangalore

Ceiling on super-speciality treatment through ESIC lifted

BANGALORE: For providing full medical care, the State Government has lifted the ceiling of Rs. 1 lakh on family members of insured persons for super-speciality treatment at the Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) hospitals and ESIC dispensaries.

Addressing presspersons here on Friday, Minister for Labour Bachche Gowda said five dependents of insured persons could avail themselves of the treatment at ESIC hospitals. The procedure for reference to super speciality has also been simplified, he said.

The notification issued by the Directorate of ESIC Medical Services, Rajajinagar, here stated that the patient who attends the dispensary, if need to be, is referred to the hospital. For those patients where treatment is not available in the ESIC hospitals, they are referred to super-speciality hospitals directly. The bills raised at the super-speciality hospitals are submitted to the ESI hospital superintendent concerned for verification and later remitted to the State Medical Commissioner, ESIC, Bangalore, the notification said.

The State Medical Commissioner will issue cheques to the referral hospitals concerned, thus the insured persons or his family members need not worry for his or hear financial status, the Minister said.

Mr. Gowda said nearly one-tenth of State’s population would benefit from the scheme. “This will definitely lessen the burden of the employees and is a gift from the Government”, he said.

Mr. Gowda aid the Labour Department would hold a job fair in Mysore on Saturday and Sunday. Earlier, it had conducted job fairs in Bangalore and Hubli. As man as 5,730 eligible persons had been given jobs in the two fairs and 8,151 persons selected for training by various companies, he said.

The Government has decided to observe the current year 2009 as the Kannada Implementation Year in honour of the state’s official language getting the classical language status.

The officials of the Labour Department have been asked to impose penalty of Rs. 10,000 for non-implementation of the government policy on compulsory display of Kannada language signboards by commercial and industrial establishments in the Sstate from January 1, Mr. Gowda said.

© Copyright 2000 - 2009 The Hindu