ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — Newfoundland and Labrador's largest health authority says it has fired an employee over a privacy breach involving the records of 11 patients.
Eastern Health says it launched an audit to investigate when two of the patients in question raised concerns.
The audit revealed several inappropriate accesses of the patients' records over several months by an employee who provided clerical support at a St. John's facility.
President and CEO David Diamond says the health authority has zero tolerance for deliberate privacy breaches and says the employee in question is no longer employed by Eastern Health.
Eastern Health has reported several privacy breaches in recent years, including one in March uncovered by a random audit that revealed 25 patients' files were wrongly accessed by a clerk over several months.
Last June, a USB drive containing the personal information of about 9,000 employees went missing for nearly two months.