Last update - 00:00 20/05/2007
Database upgrade threatens mental patients' privacy
By Ruth Sinai, Haaretz Correspondent
A new computer system installed in a number of public mental-health clinics provides access to names and information on thousands of patients, impairing their right to privacy, according to sources in the health system.
The system, now undergoing trial runs, is meant to unify the databases of clinics and hospitals dealing with mental health in a particular region, as well as provide the Health Ministry and the health maintenance organizations with information about the number of visits and the treatments of each patient.
Previously, only authorized personnel in a particular clinic or hospital could have access to a patient's file. Now all personnel of these institutions would have access to information on all the patients in a region, including the names of all past patients.
The system is also designed to assist in transferring responsibility for a patient's treatment from the Health Ministry to the HMOs, a precedent-setting and controversial reform. The Ministerial Committee on Legislation will soon be discussing a bill formulated by the Health Ministry and the treasury on the matter.
"All I do is type in 'Levy, Moshe,'" a source said, giving an example of a common name, "and all the people with that name in the system pop up. It could be my neighbor, whom I didn't even know was in treatment. I can see if he was in individual or couples' therapy, if he takes medication, if his child is in therapy, if he uses drugs, everything," he added.
Public mental-health clinic directors have warned the Health Ministry in recent months that the new system reveals sensitive information. "They put the new system to work without considering the implications," one clinic head said. "There is a lack of sensitivity om the part of the Health Ministry leadership to the fact that mental health is not like physical health. Medical information should not be revealed in any case, but if someone who is not supposed to know sees that his neighbor has diabetes, it's not the same as knowing he has a personality disorder, depression or impotence," the official said.
Therapists are concerned that the confidentiality they promise their patients to establish an atmosphere of trust, will be breached and lessen people's willingness to seek help. The therapist said that under the existing system, care-givers must approve the transmission of information to a social worker or a teacher.
The chairman of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, MK Menachem Ben-Sasson, said he takes a harsh view of any breach of the right to medical confidentiality and therefore he would soon be calling a meeting of all those involved in development of the new system.
In a statement, the Health Ministry said it was "examining the issue of the computerization of the public clinics. As soon as there are findings and answers, we will transmit them to the clinic directors."