The Tamil Nadu government is planning to establish a population Health Registry and a Unique Health ID (UHID) which will be assigned to residents across the state, Health Minister Ma Subramaniam said on September 2. Speaking at the State Assembly, the Health Minister claimed that the Health ID will improve the state health index. He announced the project along with a number of decisions taken by the Health Ministry. No further detail was given on the project. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFSOO8oGUTM This is happening at a time when the Union government has issued over 11 crore Unique Health IDs, through the CoWIN platform as part of the National Digital Health Mission. The government has previously been criticised for enrolling vaccine beneficiaries into NDHM without obtaining their informed consent. What is the NDHM? On August 15, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the National Digital Health Mission, a project that has been a long time in the making. Under the National Digital Health Mission, “every Indian will be given a health ID”, which will contain a person’s medical history, including “all tests, every disease, which doctor gave you which medicine, when, what were your reports” and will also include doctors’ appointment, payments, and so on, PM Narendra Modi said. The mission is made of six key components — Health ID, DigiDoctor, Health Facility Registry, Personal Health Records, e-pharmacy, and telemedicine, the NHA’s statement said. “All of these digital products except e-pharmacy and telemedicine have been deployed and are up and running,” it added Questions and…
