Kelowna nurse disciplined for snooping private health records

A nurse in Kelowna has been suspended three weeks for accessing private medical records and shared them with a third party.

This is the seventh B.C. nurse this year sanctioned for accessing private medical records.

Registered nurse Antonius (Ton) Gremmen, will also have to take remedial education for the violation, according to the B.C. College of Nurses and Midwives.

According to the college, in December 2022, Gremmen accessed the records "without clinical justification" and provided the information to another "when he was expressly prohibited from doing so."

The notice doesn't contain any other information about his relationship to the patient, what information he gleaned, who the third party was or why the information was shared.

Nurses accessing private health information has been a constant problem without any solution from the college or health authorities.

In November, a Surrey nurse was publicly reprimanded for the same offence committed a year earlier, but Kelly Yang faced no further discipline beyond the public notice.

In October, Port Coquitlam's Alanna Morse was suspended for 14 days for "repeatedly" accessing patient records for non-work-related purposes.

In March, Kelowna nurse Megan Angel was suspended for three weeks after she checked the medical records of a potential nanny she was considering hiring.

Three months later, Vernon nurse Michael Wood received a six-month suspension for looking at medical records he shouldn't have.

Shortly afterwards, Kelowna nurse Sondra Bader received an eight-day suspension for the unauthorized checking of someone's medical records.

In September, two nurses from the Lower Mainland were suspended for 60 days for collectively checking the records of more than 250 patients.

In August, a Kelowna woman said she tried to find answers about how her personal health information was obtained after after learning a mutual acquaintance somehow knew information before she did. She complained to Interior Health, which investigated but couldn't tell her what they found for "privacy reasons."

READ MORE: 'Frustrating': Interior Health stonewalls victim after nurse snoops on her medical records

Interior Health wouldn't tell iNFOnews.ca much, either. 

"When inappropriate access has been identified, the employee’s manager and HR are notified immediately. Anyone proven to be non-compliant with these policies would be subject to appropriate discipline, based on the severity of the privacy breach," Interior Health said in an emailed statement in August.

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