- I Paid A Bribe
- 13 years ago
- 1661 views
ESI_Not worth its contribution
- Health and Family Welfare
- ESI Related
- Paid INR 0
ESI is another useless system prevalent in our country. Getting financed through contributions of the poor wage earners, it is not its worth. It has odd timings, ambiguous rules and unsympathetic staffs/doctors to escape service of the contributor.
My nephew passed away in January 2012. My sister (nephew's mother) had got a temporary ESI identity card that was registered in November 2011, but money for ESI was deducted from her salary every month from March/April 2011. When the nephew fell into coma, it was in a great urgency that we admitted him to Bowring Hospital after three private hospitals refusing to admit the coma-borne patient. At Bowring Hospital we incurred Rs. 16,000 in total as medical expenses. When we approached ESI to claim the medical reimbursement, the ESI has some baseless rule that seeks the time gap for registration and the medical expenditure to be six months to claim reimbursement, otherwise one cannot claim whatever medical expenses he has incurred. Thus, our strong ********** that we could get reimbursement from ESI and our efforts at claiming it were defeated after two-three visits to the concerned ESIs. The employee in the bill section of ESI, Frazer Town asked me to get a running letter from ESI, Basavangudi without giving me information about the above rule for reimbursement. When I approached the concerned ESI, the manager observed our papers and said we were not eligible for reimbursement. Hence, I had to make one unnecessary trip to a far away place during my working hours.
After this, we wanted to get a Pehchan Card for the same registration. My uncle and sister do not have a good understanding with each other from the time they married about 30 years ago. Hence, my uncle was steadfast on not taking the benefit of my sister's ESI facility. Also, one of my nephew has a rectal prolapse and weakened rectal sphincter which makes him soil his pants every often. He is also mentally challenged. He very rarely steps out of the house because of this problem. It was at a very great difficulty that I united my uncle, my nephews and my sister who came together to ESI, Basavangudi for the photo session. On the first time, while we were ready to take the photo, the clerk found that one of the member's name was missing out. Hence, she told to get it filled and come back. The second time here, I with my uncle and nephews reached the ESI, Basavanagudi before lunch time and phoned my sister (who works in an office in Basavanagudi, Bangalore) to come as soon as possible so that we could get the photo session finished before lunch break. But, she came at the time exactly when the photo clerk shut her door for lunch and we had to wait for another 1 hour for the clerk to resume photo. We got very angry because we had already waited for 2 hours there and we had to leave to another place urgently. On the third attempt, my sister got all the names filled and we again approached the photo clerk. This time when our registration number was entered, the computer was showing: "Technical Error. Please contact your administrator." This time my sister was also tired and got irritated and she questioned the clerk what was wrong in the computer. The clerk (a young girl) said that it was not her fault and she could not do anything and she unprovoked and unnecessarily started shouting in a very loud voice. My sister who had already lost her son was very hurt and said "she is of my daughter's age, see how she is shouting" to people waiting there. Then after a few days I made one more visit to this office, but the technical problem still persisted. Then we went to the technical wing of the ESI (ESI office at Magadi Road). Here we lodged a complaint to some Delhi ESI to which we were said the problem will be solved in two days. After four days I approached the ESI where we were supposed to get the photograph done. Again, the computer was showing technical error when our insurance ID was entered in the computer. All these trips to the ESIs were made in the scorching heat of the sun with a mentally and physically challenged boy with is bad medical condition using bus and autos, obviously wasting a lot of our times and all this during my working hours. Then we lost interest at getting the Pehchan card and decided to forget it.
Even when I was using the ESI Hospital I had bad experiences. My ESI Hospital is located in Frazer Town and once I had a very bad time with the nurse who still works here. About 4-5 years ago, I had gone to take an injection for a wound that I sustained. I visited the hospital at 9 a.m. I waited till 11 a.m. when the nurse finally arrived. The nurse came at 11 a.m. and instead of starting her job, she started going from her room to another room for breakfast. I tried to request her to give me injection by asking her when she came out to go to another room, but in a very negligent manner she told me to wait for a while. There were only two of us waiting for the nurse, i.e. me and another person, the another person was before me in Q. The nurse could have finished our job and then gone wherever she wanted, but she wanted to finish off with breakfast first. While she went to another room and did not come out for a while, the another person who was waiting with me went away somewhere and I became the lone waiter for the nurse. After a while when the nurse came back, I became the first in Q and the other person also came by that time and stood behind me. There were no issues with both of us regarding the Q. When the nurse was ready to do her, I went in first. On seeing me entering first, the nurse with a very loud voice shouted at me "get out" like how a tough military officer would shout at a person who enters his room without asking his permission. I had to bear the brunt and wait another 10 minutes before I had to take my injection. Later when I entered the room, sensing that I would approach higher authorities due to her rude behavior, the nurse started speaking in a cool way and justified why she was late and that she had attended an emergent surgery in some other hospital, etc. Apart from this attitude of the staffs, there were other inconviences like the doctors coming 1 hour late and leaving earlier than the working hours every day. Besides this, it is a well known fact the doctors and staffs are not service minded. We come across every often in news when the pregnant woman admitted to ESI Hospital lose their babies or mother's die soon after giving birth due to the negligence of the doctors. I pray to God not let me go to ESI Hospital to seek medical care once again.
The government should scrape this system of ESI and stop deducting from the salaries of poor private employees. Or, they can deduct from the salaries of only government employees and give the medical service to government employees only. It unnecessarily causes great inconvience and hardships to people who approach ESI because of its uncaring staffs and very odd working hours.