Lengthy suspension for BC nurse who snooped on medical records

A BC nurse who has previously been disciplined for inappropriate conduct and falsifying paperwork has been suspended for seven months for snooping on medical records.

According to a Jan. 21 BC College of Nurses and Midwives decision, Edgardo Santiago, who goes by the name Jon, was issued the lengthy suspension after accessing patients’ records after they’d been discharged in 2024 and 2025.

“The College views the privacy of a person’s health information as sacrosanct. Individuals have a right to assume that their information is kept private and everyone in the health care system has an obligation to protect that information,” the decision reads. “Only individuals who are ‘inside the circle of care’ should access patient records as privacy of patient health information is a fundamental rule and a universal value.”

The decision doesn’t say how many patient records Santiago accessed or how many times. It also gives no reason why the registered nurse accessed the records.

Santiago has previously been suspended, and the College says he didn’t adhere to an agreement that he would notify the College of changes to his employment.

College records say he worked at the Royal Jubilee Hospital in Victoria.

The registered nurse has been disciplined before and in 2017 received a five-month suspension for “inappropriate conduct of a sexualized nature with a colleague in the workplace.”

He also had to complete coursework on harassment at work.

Several years later in 2023, Santiago was again in front of the regulator for failing to adequately assess a patient despite the patient’s significant medical history and symptoms.

“He observed the patient, asked peers what they had observed, and reviewed the charting of previous shifts. Then, he falsified a medical record by documenting a fulsome assessment he had not completed,” the regulator said in the 2023 decision.

He was issued a five-month suspension followed by random documentation audits. 

After each suspension, the College has said it’s satisfied the terms will protect the public.

His seven-month suspension for snooping on medical records is one of the stiffest penalties given out in recent years. 

In 2024, Vancouver Island licensed practical nurse Lindsey Rints was suspended for eight months for looking at medical records.

A year earlier, an Interior Health nurse received a four-month suspension after the College said she had a “wanton disregard” for patient privacy and “no remorse.”

Early in 2023, a West Kelowna nurse was issued a 10-week suspension for accessing confidential medical records and then sending harassing text messages.

In late 2022, former Information and Privacy Commissioner Michael McEvoy released a report which said that confidential health records were “disturbingly” vulnerable to leaks.