A super-speciality ESI hospital with a separate ‘burns care’ unit is the need of the hour to provide state-of-the-art medical care facilities to the growing number of industrial workers from the three north districts, said Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) Greater Visakha City Committee secretary M. Jaggu Naidu.
Foundation stone
While welcoming the proposal for laying of the foundation stone for construction of a 300-bed ESI Hospital at Sheela Nagar in the city at a media conference here on Sunday, the CITU leader appealed to the Chief Minister and the Union Ministers attending the foundation stone-laying programme, to ensure that the new hospital would have a ‘burns care’ unit.
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This was a necessity in view of the rising number of chemical and phasrma industries in Visakhapatnam, Vizianagaram and Srikakulam districts. During the recent fire in the HPCL as also during the fire at Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (VSP), a few years ago, those critically injured in the fires could not be saved as there were no specialised ‘burns wards’ in the city and patients had to be shifted to Mumbai.
Bed strength
Mr. Jaggu Naidu recalled that the ESI Hospital at Gandhigram near Scindia was established with 125 beds in 1972. The number of industrial workers in the three districts, who were enrolled with ESI was 50,000 at that time. Today, their number has gone up to 2 lakh but the bed strength or the number of doctors has not been increased.
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The hospital building is in a dilapidated condition. CITU as also other trade unions and workers have been agitating for construction of a new ESI Hospital for the past three years. The government should not be content with laying the foundation stone but ensure speedy completion of the construction to rule out the possibility of mishaps at the old hospital building.