Commissioner investigates release of medical records

NEWS 23.10.201816:41
N1

Serbia’s Public Information Commissioner has launched an investigation into the publication of the health care records of a woman who clashed verbally with the head of a local medical centre in Kragujevac.

Commissioner Rodoljub Sabic said the investigation launched by his office should have been launched by both the Health Care Ministry and the local prosecutor. He told the Beta news agency that he requested answers to relevant questions from the medical centre.  

The pro-government tabloid Informer published excerpts from what it claimed were the medical records of Violeta Cvetkovic following her publication of a video of her argument with doctors who she said had refused to examine her child at a local medical centre in Kragujevac. In a statement to N1, Cvetkovic said that Informer had twisted the facts and made claims about her that were not true.  

Sabic said that medica records are protected under the law on protection of data which classifies them as “particularly sensitive data”. “The law on the rights of patients defines a special very rigid regime which allows access to that data only to doctors treating the patient. Others can have access if the patient allows it or under a court decision. In other words, there is legal way for the data to be made public, especially not by tabloids,” the Commissioner said.  

He said the Health Care Ministry should impose disciplinary measures, adding that the prosecutor should react because a crime has been committed.