"To process a first free birth certificate (from bedside registration), we bypass the customer service representative; we bypass the application process; we no longer have to go into our vaults to check the records, because the same system that would record the data for civil registration and vital statistics is the same department that we have used to allow that data to go into production," Dr Holness explained.

"So we have saved millions of dollars by introducing first free birth certificates, and the whole matter of bedside registration,' she stated at the launch of the agency's newly established interactive voice response service last Tuesday August 16 at the Courtleigh Hotel, New Kingston.

The CEO said the initiative also provides the added benefit of capturing all births occurring in the country, since more than 98 per cent of the country's births occur in private and public hospitals and birthing centres.

She informed more than 168,000 registrations have been completed since the programme's inception, which represents 99.9 per cent of all births over the period.

"It means that a large number of our children are already named (and) already registered and, additionally, it has improved the number of fathers, who have added their particulars to the child's record, so the child will carry their surname," she said.