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New Delhi: Employees State Insurance Corporation has provided a COVID-19 facility dashboard for its hospital which gives real-time information about availability of beds.

Through this dashboard, citizens of this country shall be able to navigate to a displayed ESI Health Institution, view bed positions there and take decision of availing services, the labour ministry said in a statement.

Due to the demand-supply gap, beds are not available for COVID care, according to the statement. Even if beds are available, real-time information is not readily available to the needy and those facing emergencies.

The ICT team of ESIC has worked tirelessly to prepare the blueprint, develop and deploy a dashboard in record time so as to help the needy citizen search for a bed, in a dedicated facility of ESIC, it added.

The participating ESI Health Institutions are updating the data on a regular basis.

The ESIC, under the Ministry of Labour and Employment, in its endeavour to fulfil its social responsibility has taken another step to enhance citizen-centric services and dissemination of information during the pandemic.

The need of the hour is to increase the number of beds for COVID care. Many of the ESI health facilities, meant for its beneficiaries, have been opened up for the benefit of the citizens of the country for COVID-19 care.

The insured person (under the ESI scheme) and/or his family members in case of being infected with COVID-19 can avail free of cost medical care in any of the ESIC/ ESIS Hospital which has been declared as COVID-19 dedicated hospital.

Currently, 21 ESIC hospitals run directly by ESIC with 3,676 COVID-19 isolation beds, 229 ICU beds and 163 ventilator beds and 26 ESI Scheme Hospitals run by state governments having 2,023 beds are functioning as COVID-19 dedicated hospitals.

Besides, the instructions have been issued to each of the ESIC hospitals to function with a minimum of 20 per cent of its bed capacity as dedicated COVID-19 beds for ESI insured persons, beneficiaries, staff and pensioners.
Plasma therapy, which has shown promising results to save the lives of serious COVID-19 patients, is also available in ESIC Medical College and Hospital, Faridabad (Haryana), and ESIC Medical College & Hospital, Sanath Nagar (Telangana).

ESI beneficiaries may also seek emergency and non-emergency medical treatment from tie-up hospital directly without referral letter, in accordance with his/her entitlement.

In case the insured person or family member being infected with COVID-19 takes treatment in any private institution, the reimbursement of expenditure may be claimed.

In case the insured person abstains from his work being infected with COVID-19, he can claim sickness benefit for his period of abstention as per his entitlement. Sickness benefit is paid at the rate of 70 per cent of average daily wages for 91 days.