Nurse punished for confidentiality breach

Aformer auxiliary nurse at the CIUSSS-ESTRIE-CHUS has been fired after it was discovered that he had illegally accessed several medical files in order to transmit personal information to his spouse who worked for education fund manager Universitas over a period of ten years.

Marco Roberge systematically and illegally consulted post-natal files at the CHUS through a software program to which he had access in order to view the medical data of patients at the CLSC.

Roberge admitted that he had accessed all the newborn files and subsequently disclosed the parents’ contact details to his now former spouse, who specialized in education savings. The parents of the newborns were then solicited by a Universitas employee.

The scheme continued for ten years, from December 2006 to December 2016 and it wasn’t until November 2016 that the CIUSSS began to have doubts about Roberge’s integrity, although new parents had been approached by company representatives in the weeks following their deliveries for a decade.

The offense is considered very serious for a health professional because patients are entitled to expect that a health care provider will take the necessary steps to ensure the confidentiality of their medical records.

In addition to his firing, Roberge has also been struck from the rolls of the Quebec Order of Nurse Auxiliaries for 15months.