Last November, I notified the NSW Ministry of Health of my express refusal to consent to the use of my health records for secondary purposes such as training. Although I am under no obligation to have a reason, or even a good reason, I can assure you that if you understood my concerns in their entirety, you would probably conclude that it would be thoroughly unreasonable if I had not done this.
Relevant details
I have reasonable grounds to believe that they have not honoured my request, or about to not honour my request:
1. They have implicitly acknowledged my notification is valid i.e. I am allowed to refuse to allow them to use my records
2. It has to do with electronic records, and I have been advised by them that what I am asking them to do may be technically impossible
3. I know that the training in question has either already occurred or is about to occur in late January/early February
4. The Ministry of Health and the relevant Local Health District have not responded to my requests to confirm if they have used my records
Relevance to the public
This is affecting every patient in the health district, but I am the only person who has clued on right now. I believe that the Local Health District never had the lawful right to use my health records for the training that I am trying stop.
There are serious privacy implications that are going on with why I withdrew my consent to begin with. Thus, even if it had the lawful right, after I notified it of my express refusal to consent to such use, it longer has the lawful right to use these records.
In effect, a health district believes it can deliberately ignore my request because it will have inconvenienced them too much to honour my request.
Questions:
1. Am I correct in thinking that if I filed an injunction with the NSW Supreme Court, I could prevent them from training people using my health records, even if it meant that they would have to postpone the training?
2. From what I am describing, does this sound like a public interest case?
My reason for asking the above is that I would like to approach a law firm that takes on public interest cases pro bono, with the view that they help me file the appropriate documents.
Any help would be greatly appreciated
Relevant details
I have reasonable grounds to believe that they have not honoured my request, or about to not honour my request:
1. They have implicitly acknowledged my notification is valid i.e. I am allowed to refuse to allow them to use my records
2. It has to do with electronic records, and I have been advised by them that what I am asking them to do may be technically impossible
3. I know that the training in question has either already occurred or is about to occur in late January/early February
4. The Ministry of Health and the relevant Local Health District have not responded to my requests to confirm if they have used my records
Relevance to the public
This is affecting every patient in the health district, but I am the only person who has clued on right now. I believe that the Local Health District never had the lawful right to use my health records for the training that I am trying stop.
There are serious privacy implications that are going on with why I withdrew my consent to begin with. Thus, even if it had the lawful right, after I notified it of my express refusal to consent to such use, it longer has the lawful right to use these records.
In effect, a health district believes it can deliberately ignore my request because it will have inconvenienced them too much to honour my request.
Questions:
1. Am I correct in thinking that if I filed an injunction with the NSW Supreme Court, I could prevent them from training people using my health records, even if it meant that they would have to postpone the training?
2. From what I am describing, does this sound like a public interest case?
My reason for asking the above is that I would like to approach a law firm that takes on public interest cases pro bono, with the view that they help me file the appropriate documents.
Any help would be greatly appreciated
