Dr. Sands says lists had no names
NASSAU, BAHAMAS – Fears and questions emerged on Monday over an alleged breach of patient confidentiality at the Princess Margaret Hospital (PMH).
On Monday, many concerned persons reached out to Eyewitness News Online, with the hope of trying to clarify the claim that medical records at the public facility had been compromised.
Some patient records can contain sensitive information, such as a person’s mental health, diagnoses, a person’s status as well as sexual assault and domestic violence information.
Eyewitness News Online reached out to Minister of Health, Dr. Duane Sands, who said that the lists that were exposed that is causing mayhem among citizens were reportedly nameless.
“In the back and forth of the exchange between government agencies, sanitized lists of patients regarding patients’ ages and [if they are] male and female etcetera would have been released; but no identifying information was released,” Sands confirmed.
This is not the first time that public records were leaked.
Back in September 2016, The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists launched a free, online database produced from 1.3 million leaked files from The Bahamas’ corporate registry. The database circumvented the local register’s costly retrieval fee and incomplete online registry by providing, for the first time, a publicly searchable forum of the names of directors and some shareholders of more than 175,000 Bahamian companies.
