There has been a significant privacy breach at Belleville General Hospital which has led to a nurse being fired for accessing hundreds of patient records.
The accessed information could include names, addresses, birth dates, health card numbers and other health information.
QHC CEO Mary-Claire Egberts tells Quinte News the hospital is “deeply sorry” for the breach and for not meeting patients’ expectations, and that they take the responsibility of patient privacy very seriously.
She tells Quinte News, despite the “significant number” of files that were accessed, this is an isolated incident.
There’s no clear timeline on when the files were accessed but the incidents were brought up by QHC’s privacy office in September of last year.
Egberts says they don’t believe anything criminal has occurred and that the affected patients have a right to be upset, but should see the situation as nothing more than an invasion of privacy.
Even with the assumption that nothing has been shared, Egberts says the police and Ontario Privacy Commissioner have been contacted and will follow up with the hospital.
She adds that QHC will learn from the experience and implement new safeguards to make sure a similar incident doesn’t happen again.
