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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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I’m generally not a green freaky type but I do value life in its entirety, no, not vegan either lol. This, to me, is senseless waste of life, leading to extinction of life forms, and for what. It’s not like it’s helping world hunger. It’s so very sad and those responsible should feel great shame.
@Anna Carr: “and for what”? it makes money for for people and makes the big co-ops lots of money.
@Anna Carr: genuine question but why do Irish people see green people as freaks or vegans as a joke?
@Lad: I’m not sure about green, but the opinion about vegans, I dare say it’s the inability to grasp a concept differing from what they and their parents grew up with. Possibly also the refusal to even consider in the slightest the thought of learning new skills and change the way of earning income. Who knows. I’m often thinking about a story my grandmother told me when I was young.
A man had trained as an apple picker and for 20 years made a good living reaching up into the trees harvesting apples. Then the orchard burned down due to a terrible wildfire and work was only available in the neighbouring town, and only as a potato harvester. The man refused the work because after 20 years of reaching up into the apple trees, he didn’t want to learn how to bend down to pick up potatoes. And so he got no work and died of hunger.
The ability to look towards the future, to learn skills that are in demand and that actually have a future, is what I often see totally lacking in people here sadly. So much about a mind set speculation.
As to the article, I’m as usual totally amazed at the short sightedness of everybody involved. Instead of looking over the brim of the bowl and seeing the whole (our seas and oceans on this planet), talk is about this little part of it. If I were sarcastic, I would say, fear not, for in a small decade the oceans will be dead zones, there’ll be no fish to catch, and the air quality on our planet will be so bad that survival will be questionable. Yes, the oceans are a larger oxygen provider than the rain forests. Everyone intelligent enough to have seen Seaspiracy et al. and understood what was aid and shown, knows the solution to the problem. Nobody can do everything, but everybody can do something.
Opinions are like noses. Everybody has one. And that’s my opinion. No need for verbal abuse if you have a different one.
The pillaging of the sea continues unabated.
The biggest virus on this planet is the human race.
@Patrick Corr: That’s an insult to viruses. They normally don’t kill their host.
Seaspriacy a must watch on Netflix, very factual about sea vessels and the damage they cause the sea life.
@Sadie b: agree seaspiracy is a documentary everybody needs to see urgently! A revolution is needed before we destroy the oceans.
@Sadie b: if the oceans die then we die. Industrial fishing the biggest polluter on the planet and speeding up the path to self destruction. Agree seaspiracy is a must watch
@MB: No revolution needed, just an amending of eating habits.
@Sadie b: I watched Seaspiracy and think each individual section should be addressed separately. Below is a view by Ray Holborn who is respected internationally by many on both sides of the debate.
@Brendan Barry: Ray Hilborn has a vested interest and his points are so totally out of date and off the mark, I doubt anybody with an open mind would agree with him. The argument of animals being killed in crop farming has been refuted years ago due to it’s incorrect relation as proven by scientific studies and evidence. And he really misses the mark when he talks about well managed fisheries. What Seaspiracy is showing (amongst other things) is the devastating impact of the gigantic fishing fleets. The native people doing coastal fishing for their dinner in Africa or in the Pacific are certainly no threat to the oceans.
What Hilborn totally ignores is the point of unnecessary and intentional suffering and killing. Just saying.
A very interesting but depressing report. So we are told to lay off criticising the fishermen for the vast numbers of creatures suffering as by-catches as they will stop reporting them. Who’s to say they are reporting accurately anyway? The figures could be much greater and we will only know when endangered species have disapeared altogether. Nobody is there to see what is actually happening on these boats. I fear that like so much legislation meant to protect our struggling planet new regulations will be either ignored or go unenforced.
@Pat Forster: perhaps cameras on every vessel in the Irish Sea, accessible by a monitoring agency? It would be a huge operation, but to allow these guys do what they want and self report is crazy!
@Padraig O’M: Absolutely not! I’d imagine a large amount of super trawlers have cameras on board and there I can agree that companies should be obliged to show evidence that they observe practise on board their vessels and ensure it’s moral. There are fishermen who do not cause harm at all to the environment and entire communities who rely on people like these hardworking people of goodwill for fish. Small trawlers operated by father and son or whatever should not be effectively stalked by the government or any agency. That would also cost millions for the infrastructure alone and monitoring each vessel would require hundreds of staff. What is essential is that the European Union’s opinion on what our national territorial waters are is not listened to. The navy should not have ships stuck in dry dock half of the year because of poor pay. The pay must be increased so that our naval officers can protect Irish waters from foreign super trawlers, who probably aren’t familiar in the first with Irish maritime law.
We have a fantast fisheries here and we allow it to be raped and pillaged by foreign fishermen. And I know people will say we get money from the eu. Money cant be eaten. We giving future generations food away purely out of greed
The EU have only just begun trawling our waters. #KillingUsSlowly
Good to hear of better monitoring of discards. I’d like the idea of cameras on every shipping vessel and personally think a government representative should be on every trawler to document all activities. Be nice if we could start being more proactive with our great sea resource.
The answer is quite simple – so simple in fact that ye will all reject it in an attempt to keep the status quo.
Stop abusing animals – all animals – if you love your dog/cat then love chickens/cows/pigs.
You can look down on Vegans all you like but that is the plain and simple path – Save Lives – Go Vegan
The average person feels very helpless in the face of all this .We know that the ocean will eventually be destroyed by pollution ,plastic, over fishing etc etc bu what to do .And indeed by all accounts any attempt to challenge the status quo brings swift reprisals .
DON’T EAT FISH .and never will again after seeing Seaspiracy
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