30th September 2021

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 Musings…….


Our Union Government has announced the National Digital Health Mission recently. 


The most important aspect that this writer saw in the Mission is that citizens would be provided a voluntary Health ID card. 


The aforementioned Health ID card will be a 14 digit number which will contain details of every hospital visit, every report, every test conducted by the person and also details of medication and treatment. Hence, this will grant the person freedom from carrying around his/her report. 


The Health ID would be created using Aadhar card or Mobile number. 

 

However, do we really require a Health ID ? What would be the cost of computerising the whole medical infrastructure in the Public system starting from the Government Medical college to the Primary health Centre uniformly all over the country ? 

Not arguing that computerisation is not required, and if it happens along with this scheme, well and good. 


However, are we prioritising correctly ? Does healthcare require a costly Health ID right now, especially during a pandemic. Won’t the budgetary allowance spent more on improving basic infrastructure in rural areas and improve medical education, the right step forward ? 


Also has the Government thought about the enormous amount of health data that this scheme will produce ? How will the Government protect this data in times of sophisticated malware and data mining ? 


Will privacy laws be usurped and individuals medical details be sold to pharma companies ? 


Do you remember the “Sprinklr” scandal brought out against the Left government in Kerala, by the ever vigilant then opposition ? Medical data was sold like fish in a fish market. 


In the days of Post-truth society, is privacy of individuals health data, a thing of the past ? 


Food for Thought…….


RC


rohitchennithala.blogspot.com 

rohitchennithala.home.blog

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