Patients have to mention religion at Jaipur's SMS Hospital OPD; hospital authorities defend decision

The Sawai Man Singh (SMS) Hospital has started collecting religion-related information of patients. It has been started with the mobile app for out patient department (OPD) registration as patients coming to the OPD now have to mention his/her religion when doing the online registration through web or mobile app.

The purpose behind the exercise is to maintain statistical categorisation of patients as per their religion so that on the basis of patients’ history, health department can get alert if there is any kind of spread of any specific disease in people of any religion.

This is a step in direction of digitization and centralization of patients’ record at the hospital, an official at the hospital said.

“There are certain diseases which are commonly found in people of a particular religion and on the contrary, some diseases are rare in a community or religion,” Dr DS Meena, medical superintendent of SMS Hospital, said. 

“In medical science, ‘history taking’ is a worldwide common phenomena to know about religion of any patient.

It is necessary for the prediction of diseases in certain religion and to identify testive periods when people of a particular religious are reluctant to undergo treatment,” added Dr Meena.

The mobile app for OPD registration at SMS hospital was launched on January 26 this year. Since than total 2,153 patients have been registered through the app. 

The hospital also have an online registration system through which 4,059 patient have been registered.

Though, so far in manual OPD registration, there is no provision for patients to mention their religion but doctors are doing it manually.

“We used to ask at indoor department about patient’s religion and it’s a regular practice,” Dr US Agrawal, Principal, SMS Medical College, said. 

“Medical science says to record personal details of a patient including his sex, ethnicity and religion as it also help in research like common diseases in among people of a particular religion and age groups for example,” added Dr US Agrawal.

PURPOSE

The purpose behind the exercise is to maintain statistical categorisation of patients as per their religion so that on the basis of patients’ history, health department can get alert if there is any kind of spread of any specific disease in people of any religion.