ESKOM’S medical fund is in financial trouble but will be kept going by the company while it contemplates the scheme’s future, the Council of Medical Schemes said on Monday. Registrar of Medical Schemes, Danie Kolver, said Eskom reported financial shortfalls in its medical fund, Esmed, a few months ago. In terms of the plan, Kolver said, Eskom will prop up the fund until the end of the year, by which time it will clarify Esmed’s future. The Mineworkers’ Union earlier in the day claimed that Esmed was technically bankrupt, saying that the fund suffered an annual loss of about R60-million. In a statement in Pretoria it said Esmed has about 18000 members, 6500 of whom are members of the MWU. The MWU urged Eskom to allow its members to join a medical health care plan the union intended setting up.