Province tables bill to alter privacy rules, let health workers alert at-risk patients’ contacts By: Larry Kusch Posted: 7:00 PM CST Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2018

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This article was published 04/12/2018 (2468 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Nobody called Bonnie Bricker when her son Reid walked out of the Health Sciences Centre in the middle of the night three years ago, hours after he arrived there in a police car following a suicide attempt.

Reid, who had tried to kill himself on three previous occasions, was 33 years old. And there are strict rules prohibiting health officials from disclosing personal health information against someone’s wishes unless the medical provider feels they are in serious and immediate danger of harming themselves. The penalties for doing so are severe.

Reid Bricker’s remains were later recovered from the Red River.

His mother was at the legislature Tuesday to witness the introduction of a bill that would amend the Mental Health Act and Personal Health Information Act to allow medical professionals, in exceptional circumstances, to reach out to family, designated friends or other individuals — without a patient’s consent, if necessary — to lower the risk of patients harming themselves or anyone else.

“It’s a giant step for all of us,” she said.

Bricker and many others have lobbied the province for years to change the law.

“Do you think that I wouldn’t have appreciated a phone call that said, ‘Can I just ask you some questions about your son?’ Even at three o’clock in the morning I would have answered that phone,” she told reporters after Bill 5 was introduced.

“I would have talked to them. I would have told them things they didn’t know, and that would have helped.”

Health Minister Cameron Friesen said the province is attempting to balance privacy concerns with the ability to give medical authorities a tool to help at-risk patients. If the legislation passes, health authorities will develop standardized protocols for when calls to friends or family, even against the wishes of a patient, can be made.

There is that ability now, but the legal threshold is too high, Friesen said, adding the government’s intent is to prevent future tragedies.

“We believe that (the bill) is a reasonable step, and that in some cases it may make the difference between life and death,” he said. “There have been some tremendously tragic circumstances in which an individual was released (and) the person providing the care didn’t believe they had the authority to contact family members.

“We believe this could make a difference in cases like that.”

British Columbia, Nova Scotia and Ontario already have similar legislation to what is being proposed in Manitoba.

Friesen said once the legislation is in place, which won’t happen until next year, there would be a lot of work to do to educate health-care providers about the new rules.

He said patients would still have recourse to complain to the provincial ombudsman’s office if they objected to their health information being released. Health providers will likely have to record any such disclosures in patient files.

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Liberal Leader Dougald Lamont said his party has been promoting such a measure for a long time and “it’s good to see it’s been picked up by the government.”

NDP Leader Wab Kinew said he didn’t have any immediate concerns about Bill 5, but he said he’s been hearing from people who have family members struggling with mental-health issues frustrated with the lack of available hospital beds and other kinds of support.

“In a situation where somebody may be suicidal or they need some kind of intensive mental-health intervention, you could disclose the information about this individual, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re going to be able to get the resources or the bed that they need to be made well again,” he said.

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca