LIMERICK patients’ medical records and personal details being uploaded to Facebook and WhattsApp were among more than 600 breaches of data protection regulations reported nationwide by the HSE last year.
A patient’s medical record was accidentally posted on Facebook by a hospital worker in Limerick last year in one of 624 incidents involving breaches of data protection legislation by the HSE.
That’s according to information supplied under the Freedom of Information Act to the Irish Mirror newspaper.
The information provided listed numerous data breaches in multiple hospitals across the country.
A number of service users at St Camillus Hospital had personal details and images inadvertently shared on a private WhatsApp group, according to the Irish Mirror.
Last November, a patient at University Maternity Hospital Limerick had their medical record accidentally uploaded to Facebook.
Less than a week later, in the same hospital, a third party was mistakenly given a private record.
The HSE has since apologised for the breaches and said that, when an incident is reported, an investigation into how the breach occurred is carried out and preventative measures are put in place.
A spokesperson for the HSE said that the service regrets the breaches and all such incidents were taken seriously.
“We are sorry that these data breaches occurred. We take all breaches of data protection seriously and all such cases are fully investigated to establish how they occurred and preventative measures are then put in place to reduce the risk of such breaches happening again,” the spokesperson said.
