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Allaying apprehensions of students enrolled in medical colleges following Employee State Insurance Corporation’s (ESIC) recent decision to exit the field of medical education, the government said on Wednesday that the “corporation will take due care of their medical education and interests.”
An assurance to this effect was given by Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya to students and faculty of ESIC medical colleges of Kolkata, Chennai, Karnataka and Delhi who met him to express their anxiety over their future in the light of ESIC’s decision.
The Minister’s assurance came after the matter was reviewed with the Director General, ESIC. It was felt that the students/faculty may take up any residual issues, if any, with Dean of the medical college concerned or the Director General, ESIC, a Labour Ministry statement said.
Dattatreya said if State governments were willing to take over an ESIC medical college, the medical course will continue as before. “If a State government is not willing to take over the medical college, ESIC would continue to run the course until all the admitted students pass out or were adjusted in other medical colleges, as per the essentiality certificate issued by the State government concerned,” he added.
He said in case of colleges which a State governments was not willing to take over, the infrastructure created would be utilised for setting up ‘Centres of Excellence’ with in-house help or through public-private partnerships for expansion and upgradation of secondary care services and super-speciality services.
Faculty and staff
Dattatreya said the faculty and staff interests, too, will be taken care of. “Wherever the colleges are taken over by a State, the faculty recruited by ESIC would be iven the option for deputation with the State government till retirement without adversely affecting service conditions. “ESIC would explore the possibility of their return/redeployment, wherever feasible,” he added.
In cases where State governments were not willing to take over the medical colleges, the regular faculty would be given an option, wherever feasible, for utilising their services in the ESIC in a non-teaching role, without adversely affecting their service conditions.
ESIC took up medical education projects to give its hospitals dedicated access to medical manpower. It took up construction of 12 colleges from 2009. However, in view of the objective of the ESI Act to provide cash benefits to covered employees (known as insured persons) and their dependants, in its meeting in December 2014 it decided to exit medical education, saying it was not its core function.
At present, employers and employees covered under the ESI Act are required to pay contributions to ESIC, which is the source of funds for services provided under the ESI scheme.
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