From the Australian Herald Sun
Geelong Hospital is under investigation after sending a psychiatric patient's confidential medical records to the wrong person.
The documents -- wrongly included in a Freedom of Information response provided to another mental health patient -- detail extremely sensitive medical records of a woman with schizophrenia living in the same region.
Privacy Victoria and the Victorian Ombudsman have been notified of the breach and Health Services Commissioner Beth Wilson has confirmed she is investigating an incident of psychiatric records going to the wrong person.
But the woman who received the files said she was outraged by the careless record-keeping and worried her records could fall into the wrong hands.
She has visited the patient named in the files to inform her of the incident and both have lodged complaints with authorities.
The Herald Sun will not reveal their names to protect their privacy.
"I can't trust the system," the woman who received the files said. "I have no confidence in a system that dismisses this as a filing error and vague assurances that something will be done about this."
The woman placed a Freedom of Information request with Barwon Health to gain access to her psychiatric records.
She was shocked when she received five pages about the second woman, including details of an examination by a psychiatrist, an Involuntary Treatment Order, a Community Treatment Order and a treatment plan.
The documents detailed a diagnosis of schizophrenia, that the woman has a history of psychosis and does not believe she has a mental illness, suffers hallucinations and hyper religiosity.
The pages also had the name of the woman's psychiatrist, case manager and register.
The papers were returned to the hospital last Friday.
Ms Wilson said complaints about medical records being sent to the wrong person were rare but must be taken very seriously.
"Psychiatric records are particularly sensitive because of the propensity for misuse and discrimination," she said.
"This is one of the reasons why we have health-specific privacy legislation in Victoria."
Mental health charity SANE Australia's deputy director Paul Morgan said the Geelong case was "mind-boggling irresponsible incompetence" and health services needed to better protect patients.
"It doesn't matter if someone had schizophrenia or prostate cancer or anything else," he said.
"It is very private information and when people are handling files they need to understand that the whole person's life is documented there and it needs treating with respect.
"It's not enough for the response to be, 'Sorry, and we won't do it again'. There need to be systemic steps to make damn sure this doesn't happen again.
"If something is being sent out FoI there needs to be somebody going through every page to make sure there is not misfiling."
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