Devine and Peninsula and Torres Strait Regional Health Authority
(1993 S0141, 3 March 1995)
This case involved consideration of public interest factors for and against provision of access to parts of the medical record of a former patient of the respondent Authority, who had been cared for by the applicant, a registered nurse, in the context of a claim that the former patient’s medical record was exempt under s.44(1) of the FOI Act. The Information Commissioner recognised a public interest in facilitating the accountability of the Authority, both from the point of view of revealing the manner in which a public hospital operates and the way it conducts an investigation into complaints about the conduct of one of its staff (who was not the applicant). While the Information Commissioner affirmed the approach taken in Pemberton, that there may be a public interest in a particular applicant having access to information which affects or concerns the applicant, the Information Commissioner found no such interest in this case and determined that the public interest in protecting the patient’s privacy outweighed those factors in favour of disclosure. The Information Commissioner therefore found the medical record exempt.
The case also involved application of the principles set out in B and Brisbane North Regional Health Authority(1994) 1 QAR 279 as to the operation of s.46(1)(a) in circumstances where a third party supplied information, in the course of an investigation into the conduct of a member of staff of the Authority, which was not directly relevant to the investigation, and which would have been understood by the third party to have been provided ‘off the record’. The Information Commissioner found that the matter was exempt.
