Pretoria - Mothers at two Cape Town hospitals, who will spend New Year's Eve and the first day of 2011 welcoming their newborns into the world, can expect a special visitor.
Deputy Home Affairs Minister Fatima Chohan is expected to visit the new born babies and their mothers at the Durbanville Medi-Clinic and Khayelitsha Site B Maternity Clinic, and she will not be empty handed. Chohan will issue the babies with birth certificates, marking their arrival into the world.
Chohan's visit comes against the backdrop of the Department of Home Affairs' drive to secure the country's population register, through initiatives such as registering babies at birth.
During her visit to the hospitals, Chohan is expected to encourage mothers to register their babies within 30 days of birth.
This is part of a national effort to ensure that birth is the only entry point into the country's national population register, the department said.
"With one entry point into the population register, at birth, the department can succeed in its quest to eliminate fraud and corruption related to the production of identity documents, including identity theft. To meet this objective, babies are now issued with birth certificates that contain their identity numbers, in addition to the names of their mothers," it added.
To help register babies within 30 days of birth and even before they leave hospital, 314 health facilities have been connected to the department, with 169 able to do the registration online, while the remaining 145 perform manual collections, the department said.
These numbers are expected to increase in 2011.
Meanwhile, a number of new born babies in Ekurhuleni hospitals born on 1 January are set to receive a warm welcome when Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality's members of the mayoral committee pay them special visits bearing gifts tomorrow at 10am.
The hospitals that will be visited include Tembisa, Germiston, Tambo Memorial, Pholosong, East Rand and Natalspruit.
