FILES containing personal medical information about patients are regularly left on full public view in the Mid Western Regional Hospital. According to a patient who does not wish to be identified, “people attending the outpatient clinics in the refurbished out patients’ 1 Department, are having their files left in plastic containers on a gurney. Anyone passing could have access to them, - this is regular practice,” he said. “The files are brought down for people who have appointments and the receptionist comes to get them as they are needed. But in the meantime, they are left on this gurney in full public view. “I was able to take a photograph of them without being challenged”.
Alleging that the files are unsupervised while on the gurney he said there is a brick wall between the files and the receptionist.
. “They are physically out of her sight and while there are other hospital staff passing up and down, I think this represents a very serious breach of personal privacy and even security.
“What if someone took advantage of knowing that a particular address is going to be empty while that person attends their medical appointment? Criminals don’t let that kind of information get by them. All it would take is a phone-call to an associate and the house is burgled”.
The man, who was attending the clinic with a relative, said that while he has not seen anyone interfere with the files, he is concerned that it could happen.
“The receptionist is a lovely lady but she would be completely unaware if someone who shouldn’t be, was reading a file or checking an address. There is physically no way she could stop them.
Repeated enquiries from the Limerick Post have elicited no response from the HSE.