Hospital Employees Allegedly Post Woman's STD Diagnosis on Facebook
LatestWell, here is a nightmare scenario: An Ohio woman says that two University of Cincinnati Medical Center employees posted her personal information and STD diagnosis on a Facebook group called “Team No Hoes.”
Obviously, she is suing the shit out of the hospital, the employees and the ex-boyfriend who allegedly talked them into sharing the info.
WLTV reports (via RawStory) on the lawsuit. The complaint alleges that, at the instigation of the plaintiff’s ex, two UC Med Center employees posted a picture of her medical records—complete with name, syphilis diagnosis and other personal information—to the Facebook group. According to her lawyer, Mike Allen, the ramifications were immediate and awful:
“She doesn’t want to go out. She doesn’t want to talk to people. People who were formerly her friends have made fun of her for it. She’s chastised in the community and all of this could’ve been avoided if UC Med Center had proper protections in place.”
He added that, “To have that kind of information in the public domain when it is clearly legally to be protected, that’s a problem and that’s a problem that UC’s responsible for.” To say the least! I don’t even want my blood pressure to be a matter of public record. There’s literally no scenario where it would be remotely OK for a patient’s medical records to end up on FACEBOOK, much less in a group called TEAM NO HOES.
You couldn’t even put this in a HIPAA compliance workshop, because it’s so obviously wrong.
The woman wants UC Med Center to tidy up its protocols, plus “more than” $25,000 in damages. Frankly, that seems low!
Photo via Shutterstock.