RGD Introducing Online Bedside Registration of Births

The Registrar General’s Department (RGD) is moving to introduce online bedside registration in hospitals and clinics soon, to facilitate real time registration of births in these facilities, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Dr. Patricia Holness, has said.
Speaking with JIS News, Dr. Holness noted that while regular bedside registration has facilitated 100 percent recording of all births in hospitals and clinics, islandwide, the records have had to be taken from these locations to the regional facilities for verification and loading onto the central database.
Online bedside registration, she points out, is expected to reduce the duration of this undertaking.
“So mothers and fathers will be required to sign on a tablet, instead of signing on paper, that will be verified on the spot, which would be (automatically) sent to a central location. In terms of providing vital statistics (in the future), we would be way ahead of the game…we would be having it in real time,” the CEO outlined.
Regarding applications for birth certificates, particularly for children who are starting school, Dr. Holness informed that this has posed no new challenge for the RGD, since the introduction of bedside registration. The exercise, which commenced in 2007, has been recording 100 percent success, with registrations taking place “within days of birth,” she stated.
“In the past, we have had significant levels of registration, but we would have had the challenge of a registration occurring, but no name. So you would have ‘male/female child of’, and the mother is named, the father is named, but there is no registration of the name of the child,” the CEO outlined.
She pointed out that, consequent on the distribution of the RGD’s baby booklets containing suggested names, to mothers in hospitals, they are better able to come forward with a name.
“We are able to do full registration. And we look forward to that continuing to happen, considering that 98 percent of our births occur in an institution. So, if we are getting 100 percent registration in an institution, we could safely translate that to mean we are getting 98 percent of all our children registered,” Dr. Holness said.