An Antigonish woman has been charged in relation to a privacy breach at St. Martha’s Regional Hospital.
RCMP say an admitting clerk at the hospital allegedly accessed 2690 patient records between May 1 and Oct. 4, 2023.
Those records were not related to her job duties, police say.
Sarah Emily Dewolfe, 30, faces charges of “willfully gaining or attempting to gain” access to health records, contrary to the regulations of section 106 in the Health Information Act.
“However, there is no evidence at this time to indicate that Dewolfe disclosed the patient records,” writes RCMP Cpl. Guillaume Tremblay in a news release.
She’s scheduled to appear in Antigonish Provincial Court on July 17.
Nova Scotia Health Minister previously said the hospital discovered an employee had accessed a large number of health records through an audit by the department.
However, Dewolfe was fired in November 2023, and the public didn’t know about the breach until April.
Nova Scotia Health previously stated they’re in the process of contacting everyone who had their records accessed.
Class-action lawsuit
Wagners Law Firm in Halifax filed a class-action lawsuit on May 7. They’ve already heard from 159 patients about the issue, lawyer Maddy Carter previously told the Acadia Broadcasting newsroom.
“People feel like their trust in our healthcare system has been eroded. They’re lacking confidence that their sensitive, personal health information has been protected in the way that they expected,” said Carter.
