[Reader-list] Online-birth certificates and online-health cards to be launched in India

[Taha Mehmood]

Dear All

In idle talk one useless proposition often leads to another but is
this the way to think about policy, Dinesh Trivedi, minister of state
for health,  seems to believe otherwise. He met Nandu, the plumber,
for dinner the other day and proposed to him, ' to produce e-health
cards and birth certificates for newborns'.

In a country where primary health care is in shambles, where most
babies are not born in hospitals, where many hospitals are not even
equipped with electricity and a country which distinguishes itself by
rewarding doctors, who happen to sincerely offer primary care service,
to long periods of incarceration on stupid pretexts, is it really not
sad and painful to watch how far removed and distant the dinner table
of these two gentlemen appears to be, from a reality they aspire to
trap in alpha numbers and package it in molded plastic and stuff it
with imported silicon and then thump their hairy chests with an
exaggerated sense of achievement!!

Maybe Shourie is wrong after all, it is not just Rajnath alone but we
are a country of Tarzans!! However, is banter always useless? Could
be. Just like a casual dinner time conversation may actually mean a
change in the lives of millions of Indians so to, who knows, a chance
conversation from a person having dissimilar views may have some
sensible effect.

Neesha Patel, has this to suggest about primary health care in India,
'fertility, mortality and morbidity remain unacceptably high, both
compared to countries in the region and those at similar income
levels. Although poverty and low levels of education are the root
causes, poor stewardship over the health system bears some
responsibility. India’s primary healthcare system is based on the
Primary Health Centre (PHC) which is not spared from issues such as
the inability to detect diseases early due to lack of
multi-disciplinary medical expertise and laboratory facilities and
insufficient quantities of general medicines. At the same time,
patients usually do not visit PHCs' (
http://www.expresshealthcaremgmt.com/20050831/ruralhealthcare01.shtml
)

In India must we not pride ourselves for being a country which is
128th on HDI Index of UNDP just above the mighty, Solomon Islands and
just below the great  empire of Equatorial Guinea? Why should our
quickgun Muruguns in Trivedis and Nilekanis, Mind It! when a mere 97
infants die for every 1000 live births for the poorest 20% of the
population? ( http://hdrstats.undp.org/countries/data_sheets/cty_ds_IND.html
)

Please read the story for more.

Warm regards

Taha

http://www.espynick.com/2009/08/28/very-soon-online-birth-certificates-and-online-health-cards-to-be-launched-in-india/

Online-birth certificates and online-health cards to be launched in India

Birth certificate at the click of a mouse? It’s quite likely. The
health ministry has started brainstorming with Nandan Nilekani – the
man tasked with India’s unique identification project – to produce
e-health cards and birth certificates for newborns.

“We were discussing it yesterday (Wednesday) over dinner. I proposed
it to him,” Dinesh Trivedi, minister of state for health, said
Thursday while inaugurating the Life Science Conclave here.

Birth certificate is an important document and it should be available
to people anytime, anywhere. People should be able to go to a cyber
cafe and get a printout of their birth certificate.

About the e-health certificate, this document will have the entire
history of the newborn – weight, vaccination, any birth problem and
other related information – and all these will be available on the
net.

Nilekani, a co-founder of software giant Infosys, has joined the
central government as chairperson of the Unique Identification
Database Authority of India. It is a new agency set up to provide
unique identification numbers to all citizens for accessing various
government services.

Hope this comes in to action very soon…