THE HSE HAS alerted Gardaí and the Data Protection Commissioner after a TikTok video filmed inside the old St Conal’s psychiatric hospital showed many boxes of historic confidential patient records, some of which appeared to be rotting.
While some records appeared to be from the psychiatric hospital itself, X-rays, emergency department reports and other general hospital records were also discovered.
The HSE said the records were being “stored” in a “locked facility”, and that it is aware that they were accessed, and that it has alerted the Gardaí to the incident.
While some buildings on the site have become derelict over the years, as has been noted by management from the local Community Health Organisation, the HSE has brought parts of the site back into use, as office space and library facilities.
The Tiktoker who took the video and posted it online told The Journal that while there was a lock on the front door of the facility, it wasn’t actually locked, and they accessed the facility “by just opening the front door and going in”.
The TikToker said that the patient records included detailed accounts of injuries, and that many of them dated back to the 80s and 90s.
“There were two open doors, that is how we went into the building. We didn’t remove any property or damage anything. I think the issue is that some of the patients these records refer to are still alive. They aren’t being kept securely, and many are in bad condition,” he said.
The Belfast man said that when he visits sites like St Conal’s, he deliberately parks his car under a CCTV camera before going in.
“We want to make it clear that we are only going in with our phones and torches, so we look for a CCTV camera nearby, which can be difficult to find, because a lot of these old buildings don’t actually have them,” he said.
A spokesperson for the HSE said: “The building has been reviewed by local HSE management this morning and additional security measures will be fitted today to further secure the building.”
The HSE has also reported the incident to the Data Protection Commissioner.
“The commissioner will determine whether or not this constitutes a breach,” a spokesperson for the health service said.
“In parallel, a review of the requirement to continue to store historical records in line with HSE policy on record retention periods will be completed as soon as possible,” the HSE added.
The HSE has a detailed policy on how long different kinds of patient records have to be stored for. In all cases, once the period of retention has expired, documents are meant to be “destroyed” in a “confidential” manner.
For example, emergency department registers, where they exist in a paper format, should be destroyed eight years later. However, as they are likely to have archival value, the HSE is required to contact the national archives before destroying them.
Ambulance records, with a patient identifiable component, are kept for ten years.
Records relating to clinical trials of investigational medicinal products should be kept for 20 years.
Records relating to specific conditions are sometimes retained for longer. Healthcare records relating to Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease are kept for 30 years from the date of diagnosis, even if the patient has died in this time.
Donor records, for blood and tissue, are retained for 25 years. Some records, such as those created under the Childcare act, have to be retained in perpetuity.
It is not clear at this stage exactly what kinds of medical records are being retained inside of the former St Conal’s psychiatric hospital, or if any of them are to be destroyed under confidential conditions.
A garda spokesperson told The Journal: “Gardaí in Donegal are currently making enquiries into an incident which occurred at a premises in Letterkenny.”
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