Re: Can patient info or medical records be provided to a third party?

[Guest guest]

Dear Dr Buch:

Thank u once again for your valuable comments. I completely agree with your views this time. Right to privacy and secrecy of patient information has been held supreme by all medico-legal provisions. Only under exceptional circumstances when the public interest is better served by disclosure can the info be revealed. There are cases wherein the information about patient's disease has been misused and as you rightly pointed out, done irreversible damage to the patient. At the same time information has been withheld at the patient's request even from the patient's own family members including his spouse.

It is quite possible one of these days if someone will request the case sheets of his neighbour with whom he has a scoreto settle. If it states that he is HIV positive and if this fellow takes the photocopy and circulates it in the community leading to the suicide of this person, who will be responsible? The fear of discrimination and ostracism on revelation of disease status can wreck havock on the patient.

There are other situations in which a patient may desire absolute secrecy, sometimes even from the spouse. In Kerela there was a patient who preferred marrying off his daughter to chemotherapy for himself. This man understood that the best deal he could get from chemotherapy is perhaps 6 more months but the cost of it would wreck the plans of marriage. He feared that if the relatives knew this they would compel him to have chemotherapy and wanted to retain his dignity by making correct decision for his family in those last months of his life. PIO complied with his request of not disclosing his disease to hisfamily for which even one day of extension of his life was more desirable.

Kind Regards

Dr Geer M Ishaq

> > > Dear Members:> > > Here is a question for you to answer. Can a hospital or a healthcare> > provider divulge patient info or medical records to a third party on request> > vide Right to Information Act?> > >> > >> With Regards> > > Dr. Geer M. Ishaq> > > Sr. Assistant Professor> > > Dept. of Pharmaceutical Sciences> > > University of Kashmir> > > Srinagar-190006 (J & K)> > > Ph: 09906673100> > > http://www.sites.google.com/site/ishaqgeer> >>