Employee in Prince Albert snooped into ex-husband's, daughter's medical files

Snooping into someone's medical data is a breach of privacy rules, but secretly conducting urine tests is not, Saskatchewan's privacy and information commissioner says.

A Saskatchewan man complained to the privacy commissioner last year that his ex-wife poked into health information and performed urine tests at a hospital in the Prince Albert area when it wasn't her job.

It was alleged that the ex-wife —  a combined laboratory and x-ray technologist in the Prince Albert Parkland Health Region — snooped into the records of the ex-husband and their daughter and also tested the daughter's urine.

However, with respect to the urine, there were no records created, nor data entered into the health region's computer system, so it's not a privacy issue, commissioner Ron Kruzeniski ruled April 5.

For that reason, Kruzeniski said the urine case is a worker conduct or misconduct issue.

The report didn't say if there were any disciplinary measures in response to the improper urine tests.

The decision doesn't name any of the people involved.

Medical data accessed 5 times

Meanwhile, accessing the documents was ruled a breach of the Health Information Protection Act.

Between 2012 and 2014, in five cases, the employee accessed medical data from the system that contains x-rays, CT scans and MRI scans.

Two cases involved her ex-husband's information, while three involved her daughter's.

The employee received a warning that she would be fired if it happened again. She also received some additional training and was put under a system of random audits.

The health region has also worked to tighten up procedures and inspections and improve training, Kruzenski's report said.