Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday, my colleague Mr. Yakeleya raised the issue of confidential medical records from Norman Wells inadvertently ending up at the CBC here in Yellowknife. Mr. Speaker, that was a very serious issue and the Minister, in response to questions from Mr. Yakeleya, stated that it was an accident and sometimes accidents happen.
Mr. Speaker, just yesterday a Yellowknife woman had come forward saying she’s received a dozen faxes containing confidential medical information. Mr. Speaker, I believe the Minister of Health and Social Services has some explaining to do. I would like to ask the Minister if she’s aware of these other breaches of privacy, serious breaches of privacy. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I did hear about the situation that the Member is describing and we are investigating that. Thank you.
I would like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services how often major breaches of privacy happen with her department and the health authorities across the Northwest Territories that don’t hit the newspaper or the media. Thank you.
As I indicated in the House, every health authority, every health profession, professionals have a very strict protocol on patient records and medical information and they are to follow those protocols. When there are situations like this as sometimes does happen, then you have to investigate and work with the Privacy Commissioner to make sure those breaches don’t happen again and we are doing that with the latest information. Thank you.
In response to my colleague Mr. Yakeleya on Tuesday, the Minister stated that a policy already exists or is in place to protect the privacy of patients with confidential medical records. I’d like to ask the Minister if she’s willing to share that policy with us and, if there is such a policy, why these breaches are taking place. Thank you.
I’d be happy to share that. We know that policies exist, but it’s the people and machines that implement those policies and procedures. The latest information is that the information was faxed from an Alberta facility and our Privacy Commissioner is in touch with her counterpart to follow up on the details of this. Details are not clear at the moment, but we are following up on that as we take these issues very seriously. Thank you.
Final supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as if it’s not bad enough that the information is getting out there, the lady that received some of these confidential medical records here in Yellowknife had, in fact, phoned the Stanton Territorial Hospital and told them that she had received this information. She never heard back from the hospital. I’d like to ask the Minister, if she’s going to take a look at this, you know, are people going to be responsible for not getting back to this woman and not telling her what she should do with these confidential medical records when she received them inadvertently. Thank you.
We are investigating the situation to see, in fact, exactly what happened and obviously we want to make sure that all the steps that were to be taken were taken. But first of all we have to have the facts, because this just came to light in the last few hours. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.
