ESIC launches tele-medicines services for Northeast

The Employees' State Insurance Corp (ESIC) today launched tele-medicine services for providing specialist medical services at a distance for Northeast states under the second phase of the rollout.
"Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya launched the 2nd phase of Tele-medicine services for providing specialist medical services at a distance to insured workers here today," the Labour Ministry said in a statement.
According to the statement, in this phase ESIS dispensary, Dimapur (Nagaland), Shillong (Meghalaya), Agartala (Tripura) has now been connected to ESIC Hospital, Joka, Kolkata from December 1, 2016.
The telemedicine services are going to bridge the gaps between presence of beneficiaries at different North-Eastern States locations and availability of Specialist and Super-specialist Consultation services, it said.

The first phase was launched in September, 2016 by connecting ESIC Model Hospital Basaidarapur with three ESIS dispensaries at Katihar (Bihar), Unnao (UP) and Rudarpur (Uttrachal).
On the occasion, the Minister interacted with some workers visiting these far off Dispensaries for medical consultation. Santi Jiban Chakraborty from Agartala, Madalet Marboh from Shillong and Md Kalamuddin from Dimapur were overjoyed to see the Minister enquiring about their health and the facilities being given to them, the statement said.

They were satisfied to receive consultations from specialist doctors from ESIC Hospital Joka, Kolkata through this Tele-Medicine Services of ESIC, it added.
ESIC has been providing health care and other social security benefits to the workers of specified wage group since the last 65 years as a labour welfare measure.

Under this new initiatives, ESIC has launched Pilot Project of Tele-medicine Services at 11 ESI locations at NO Cost; in coordination with Health Informatics and Electronic Division (HIED), C-DAC, Mohali, under the aegis of "Digital inclusive and Smart Community (DISC) which is a part of Digital India Programme of Government of India.