In what was termed a landmark move, the Employees State Insurance Corporation Medical College and Hospital here signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Nizam's Institute of Medical Science to provide super speciality medicare to the poor.
The ESIC will provide accomodation to the specialists for a period of one year so that they can be on call 24/7, said Union Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya, while Telangana Health Minister K. Laxma Reddy said NIMS would provide super-specialists in the disciplines of neurosurgery, neurology, cardiology and cardiac surgery, nephrology, urology, radiology and anesthisiology. The new college will have an intake of 100 students every year.
The MoU was signed by ESIC Medical College Dean Srinivas and NIMS Director K. Manohar early on Monday morning at the ESIC Regional Office in the presence of the ministers. Mr. Dattatreya said this was first-of-its-kind move in the country and said it was heartening to note that infrastructure that costs Rs. 1,600 crore at the Sanathnagar complex would now put to use after remaining idle for almost three years.
Mr. Reddy said that thanks to the assistance by the Centre through the ESIC and with the State chipping in with super-speciality medicare through the NIMS, 1000s of poor patients would now get access to medicare that they could never of, in the lives. The State was willing to work with Centre in optimising resources and ensuring the poor got the best of healthcare, the kind that was being given by corporate hospitals, he said.
Mr. Dattatreya stated that in the financial year 2016-17 itself Central assistance to the tune of about Rs. 1,000 would reach Telangana as Centre's share of 60 per cent in several medical projects and institutions.Of this the Mahatma Gandhi Medical College and Hospital, Warangal, Regional Institute of Medical Sciences, Adilabad and State Cancer Centre in Hyderabad would get Rs. 150 crore each for expanding infrastructure.
Other allocations, he said, included Rs. 278 crore especially for reproductive child health, Rs. 434 crore for diabetic and elderly persons across the State. All this and more was readily available from the Central Government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose dream it was to ensure cooperative federalism that sought State participation, the Union Minister said.
