Complete medical records of a deceased patient was denied to the advocate claiming it was personal information - Information was provided to the father of the deceased when he filed the RTI application - CIC: Complaint disposed
7 Nov, 2015Information sought:
The complainant sought information on 11 points regarding the complete medical records of his deceased daughter Ms. Jyoti.
Relevant facts emerging during hearing:
Both the parties are present and heard. The complainant filed an RTI application on 05.05.2014 seeking the above information through his advocate Shri Arvind Sinha. PIO/AAO transferred the RTI application to PIO-Department of Hospital Administration to provide the reply to the appellant. Having not received any response from the PIO-Department of Hospital Administration, complainant filed the present complaint before the Commission. The complainant stated that he received the information vide letter dated 8th December, 2014 after a period of seven months and produced a copy of the same before the Commission. He further stated that his daughter expired within very short period of her admission and he feels that there is some negligence on the part of the doctors who treated her. The respondent stated that reply was sent to the complainant’s advocate who filed the RTI application vide letter dated 19th May, 2014 in which they mentioned that “the information sought by you in your application pertains to patient’s personal hospital records and the other related issues are privileged communication between the patient and the hospital which falls in a confidential fiduciary relationship and thus cannot be provided to anyone else except the patient himself/herself or next of kin viz. spouse/children/parents/siblings-in that order in case the patient has expired; or to the court of law. Accordingly, the information sought by you is exempted u/s 8(1)(e) Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, there shall be no obligation to give any citizen, information available to a person in his fiduciary relationship, unless the competent authority is satisfied that the larger public interest warrants the disclosure of such information; & 8(1)(j) Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, there shall be no obligation to give any citizen, information which relates to personal information the disclosure of which has no relationship to any public activity or interest, or which would cause unwarranted invasion of the privacy of the individual unless the Central Public Information Officer or the State Public Information Officer or the appellate authority, as the case may be, is satisfied that the larger public interest justifies the disclosure of such information: Provided that the information which cannot be denied to the Parliament or a State Legislature shall not be denied to any person. of the RTI Act, 2005” and produced a copy of the same before the Commission. He further stated that information was provided to the complainant when he filed the RTI application on 27th November, 2014.
Decision:
After hearing the parties and on perusal of record, the Commission concludes that the reply of the PIO was as per the provisions of the RTI Act. No further action is required in the matter. The complaint is disposed of accordingly.
(Yashovardhan Azad)
Information Commissioner
Citation: Shri Shri Ram v. All India Institute of Medical Sciences in F.No.CIC/YA/C/2014/000422