You can sue your doctor for revealing your health status to a third party

One of the trending news of this week is that a Benue State Magistrate Court sitting in Makurdi on Tuesday remanded one Dr Kadev Kenneth Kelvin at the federal correctional facility in Makurdi over alleged cyberstalking and breach of patient/ doctor confidentiality.

“The accused person, Dr Kadev, in a Facebook post on March 12, 2023, stated that he stitched the lacerated anus of the Benue State Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Bemgba Iortyom after he was sodomized while in Abuja prison in 2017”.

                    ***********

Patients have serially complained about this situation of their doctors making public some Private information they confided with the doctors.

Some health practitioners who are in a bid to gain followers or attract traffic to their pages do go the extra in sharing on social media pages private information that their clients confided in them. There’s absolutely nothing more embarrassing than this; seeing your doctor publicly revealing some information about your health status that should have been kept private.

The law has taken into consideration that in some relationships; there are strict requirements concerning one or both party’s consent before information can be disclosed or shared with a third party or made public because at the course of these types of relationships, very personal and sensitive information is shared and exchanged which may include; medical conditions, number of days left to live, personal finances etc. This is why the law mandates that the strict rule of confidentiality should be observed by both parties and on no account should a patient’s or client’s information be made public or revealed to the third party without the consent of the patient or client unless when the law requires it so.

Examples of the three most common of these relationships that the law requires strict observation of the confidentiality rules are:

1. A doctor or nurse or any other medical personnel/ patient relationship

2. A therapist or counsellor/patient relationship

3. A lawyer/ client relationship

To this effect, whatever information you revealed to your doctor or any other medical personnel or the doctor found out himself by examining you is to be kept and preserved like a highly guarded secret and should never be revealed to the public or the third party without your unequivocal consent. The doctor is not even allowed to share this information with his wife or her husband or close friends if not it will amount to medical malpractice or the crime of breach of confidentiality. The same goes for a therapist and a lawyer.

The purpose of this confidentiality is to make patients feel comfortable enough that they provide any and all information that is useful for receiving proper medical care. A patient’s full disclosure without fear of getting embarrassed helps the doctor to make a correct diagnosis and helps the doctor provide the patient with the best possible medical care. This rule of confidentiality is therefore based on the notion that a person shouldn’t be worried about seeking medical treatment for fear that their condition will be disclosed to others or made public.

Be it as it may, there are a few exceptions when a doctor is permitted to reveal a patient’s information by law without the patient’s consent and the doctor will not be held liable for medical malpractice or breach of confidentiality. The situation may include;

•  A doctor is to (as a matter of public duty) reveal or breach the confidentiality rule if the patient plans to cause immediate harm to others. For instance, a patient who is HIV positive threatening out of grievance or retaliation to cause the spread of HIV in his or her neighbourhood.
• A doctor is required by law and as the rule of court to reveal a patient’s information If that confidential information is at issue in a lawsuit or will aid the police investigation.
•  A doctor can reveal a patient’s health status if the disclosure is required by the government, state health officials or by a court order requiring medical records to be produced.

Therefore, whatever information you reveal to your doctor, therapist or lawyer is expected to be kept between just both of you and should be taken to the grave unless in the few instances highlighted above as exemptions to when a doctor is legally permitted to breach this rule.