Hands often tied when giving police information

When a batch of lethal drugs hits the streets that links multiple victims, it could lead police to charges against bigtime suppliers. But finding and connecting cooperative witnesses can be difficult.

Drug investigations often begin at hospital emergency rooms with police following the trail of paramedics, who by law can’t hand over private patient information, including names, addresses or medical details.

Instead, police are left with the challenge of interviewing friends or family, found through public records, to determine the source of the drugs.

All too frequently, those who overdose, or those who find them, don’t even call 911, preferring instead to take a patient directly to the hospital. Police will never know about those cases unless the patient dies.

Union County Prosecutor David Phillips works closely with police and hospitals in and around Marysville, and knows that information sharing is limited. So he recently asked the Ohio attorney general’s office whether there was more that hospitals could do to help him build cases to snare dealers.

What he was told: Doctorpatient confidentiality and patient privacy laws severely limit that assistance from medical professionals, even those who want to do more.

“The hospitals understand and want to be part of the solution,” said Phillips. “The issue became, ‘what can they do?’ Under what conditions can the hospital voluntarily report?”

State law provides immunity from prosecution to overdose patients or those bringing in the patient for help. Hospitals can’t, by law, volunteer those contacts to police.

“We’re interested in getting to the source of the supply,” said Phillips. “There is always a bit of tension between (patient privacy laws) and law enforcement.”

Hospitals are required to report to police when they have victims of gunshots, stabbings and other violent felonies. But not overdoses.

“It’s a balancing act, what we’re compelled to do by law ... and what it is we’re allowed to do,” said Dr. Victor Trianfo, chief medical officer at Memorial Health System, which oversees several hospitals and clinics, including Memorial Hospital in Marysville. “We always welcome clear, concise, nonambiguous direction from the legislative arm or anyone else.”

That balancing act was placed in the national spotlight just recently when a video went viral of a Salt Lake City nurse being shoved and handcuffed by a detective after she refused to draw the blood of an unconscious patient who had been involved in a fatal car crash. The nurse wouldn’t take the blood without a court order. The detective has since been fired.

The Ohio Hospital Association acknowledges that cooperating with police is important, but also says it must be done within the law.

“It’s just the legal parameters that we have to abide by,” association spokesman John Palmer said. “Whatever doesn’t violate the hospital’s responsibility, we’re willing to pursue. We definitely understand that there’s potential for collaboration to make sure there is stronger communication.”

Paramedics get frequent calls to help people who are unconscious, and they don’t know whether it’s drugrelated or something else, said Chief Mike Schuiling of Delaware County Emergency Medical Services. Paramedics often revive patients with such things as Narcan. But unless served with a court order, they share that information only with the hospital.

“We certainly don’t want to walk the county into a lawsuit by giving information that we shouldn’t,” Schuiling said. “And many times it’s more detrimental to society by not sharing that information, but it’s the law. It creates a really bad position for law enforcement.”

Phillips, meanwhile, will continue to work with all partners to combat the drug supply and hopes that lawmakers might reconsider the situation.

“What it may actually require is a legislative change,” the prosecutor said.