Hong Kong Hospital Authority denies leaking data to police after extradition bill protesters arrested in public hospitals
- Medical sector lawmaker accuses authority of misleading the public over protesters’ arrests
- Concern mounts that injured protesters will skip treatment to avoid apprehension
Hong Kong’s public hospital operator has denied leaking patient data to the police after it emerged that anti-extradition protesters were arrested after seeking medical help in the city-run facilities.
The concern over patient privacy came as Dr Pierre Chan on Monday presented a photocopy of part of a list he said he received from a health care worker that disclosed the information of 76 patients who were treated in the emergency ward of a public hospital on June 12 and 13.
One group of patients was marked as having attended a “mass gathering outside Legco”. A note on the top-left corner of the document read “For police”.
Chan said such a list could be obtained through the clinical data system in some hospitals without requiring a login.
“Any staff member in uniform working in the emergency ward, who managed to go near a computer, could [go into the system] without a login. They could then generate a list [of patients’ information] by entering the date,” Chan said.
The Hospital Authority, which runs the city’s public hospitals, held a news conference to clarify the matter on Monday night, stressing that it had never authorised anyone to print the patients’ data for police officers.