Dozens of SA Health staff investigated over allegations of workers accessing patient records

Dozens of SA Health staff have been investigated for allegedly snooping into patients’ records, as the probe into people allegedly accessing Charlie Stevens’ records continues.

Almost 100 SA Health staff have been caught allegedly prying into patients’ records over the past six years despite strict warnings of dismissal for such behaviour – seven have been sacked.

The revelation comes as SA Health’s investigation into 18 staff who allegedly snooped into the medical records of Charlie Stevens should be concluded by the end of next month.

Southern Adelaide Local Health Network Chief People Officer, Michael Francese said the investigations into the potential inappropriate access of a patient’s record “are expected to be concluded in around five weeks.”

Charlie Stevens. Picture: Supplied

13 clinicians hacked into Cy Walsh’s medical records without authority after his admission to Flinders Medical Centre. Picture: Supplied

Charlie Stevens, 18, the son of Police Commissioner Grant Stevens, suffered an irreversible brain injury and later died after a hit-and-run crash at Goolwa Beach during schoolies celebrations last November. Dhirren Singh Randhawa, 19, of Encounter Bay, has pleaded guilty to one aggravated count of driving without due care, after originally being charged with causing death by dangerous driving, and sentencing submissions are due to be heard next month.

The Advertiser can reveal the latest investigation follows repeated cases of patient records being spied on over almost a decade resulting in a total of 20 people being sacked.

SA Health which employs almost 50,000 people instituted a zero-tolerance policy for snooping patients’ records after the Cy Walsh scandal when it was revealed 13 clinicians hacked into his medical records without authority after his admission to Flinders Medical Centre.

This followed the stabbing death of his father, then-Crows coach Phil Walsh, in 2015 during a mental health episode.

Those 13 were disciplined. It then emerged that at least nine other patients had their records browsed without authority by at least 24 staff.

In August 2018 The Advertiser revealed 13 staff had been sacked and 26 disciplined between February 2016 and June 2018 for trawling patient health records without authorisation.

Employees who were disciplined but not sacked had inadvertently accessed records without authorisation.

In further cases since then, an SA Health statement to The Advertiser says: “Between 1 July 2018 and 30 June 2024, 96 employees faced disciplinary action for inappropriately accessing patient records.

“Out of these, seven incidents resulted in termination of employment.”

After the Cy Walsh scandal, Labor’s then-health minister Jack Snelling pledged anyone caught snooping would be sacked.

The then-SA Health chief executive David Swan said: “The trust between our patients and staff is the bedrock of our high-quality health system and we take any breach of patient confidentiality or privacy extremely seriously.”

In a separate tech blunder, more than 7200 child patient records from the Women’s and Children’s Hospital were left online for 13 years before being discovered by a mother who googled her child’s name in 2018 and made a complaint when she discovered it.

Names, birth date and results for about 7200 pathology tests from 1996 to 2005 were put online in an academic presentation on childhood infections posted to the hospital website in 2005.