Government has taken over 50 estate hospitals intended to serve nearly one million estate sector employees.

They lacked proper management, and staff to render medical care and most had only name boards, Health Ministry sources said.

The estate hospitals had been managed by plantation companies. Hereafter they will come under the Health Ministry.

Graduate doctors will be posted to all 50 hospitals which will be modernised to cater to the needs of the marginalised plantation community, according to the Health Ministry.

Staff to be trained by the Health Ministry would be recruited from the estate sector youth, a Health Ministry spokesman said.

That scheme would help address the growing unemployment problem in the plantation sector, he said.

Hereafter, he said, plantation workers would be able to receive treatment on their estates without being transferred to government hospitals.

No decision had so far been taken to establish maternity homes but that too would be considered in the near future, the spokesman said.