In 2019, Tammy went to the hospital’s emergency department seeking medical treatment. She told us she waited for a long time to be seen and was called names by hospital staff. When Tammy contacted our office, among other concerns, she told us a violence alert was on her medical record by way of a purple dot affixed to her file and she didn’t understand why.

We looked into the violence alert placed on Tammy’s medical record. Despite having a suite of policies and procedures in place to ensure that Island Health provides a safe and respectful environment for all of its staff and patients, Island Health was unable to provide any documentation to support why the violence alert was placed on Tammy’s file in the first place. Further, Island Health confirmed that there was no record that Tammy had ever been notified of the alert, that she had been advised of reasons why it was placed on her file, or that the alert was reassessed at established intervals, as required, by the applicable violence assessment procedure.

We were concerned that Tammy’s repeated requests for information about why the violence alert was on her record, who put it there and whether it could be removed, were not responded to adequately or appropriately. Rather than assisting Tammy to access the information she was entitled to about her own medical record, Island Health raised several barriers that made it difficult for her to find the answers she was looking for. The violence alert on her medical record created a stigma which made it more likely to lead to discriminatory treatment by staff.

It appeared that the placement of the violence alert on her medical records was arbitrary and contrary to principles of administrative fairness. Based on our review of Tammy’s complaint, we asked Island Health to remove the violence alert from Tammy’s medical record in its entirety and to write her a letter confirming that it had been removed as well as explaining the reasons why.

Island Health agreed to our recommendations and took the steps necessary to resolve the fairness concerns identified. Island Health wrote Tammy a detailed letter of apology, and committed to removing the violence alert from her medical records. Unfortunately, a few weeks later when Tammy attended the emergency department to seek treatment, she saw her medical record and noticed that the violence alert still appeared to be on her file. We followed up with Island Health to find out why it had not been removed. Island Health looked into the matter and discovered that there had been a mistake made in removing the violence alert from all parts of Tammy’s medical record. Island Health wrote to Tammy again to explain the mistake and to confirm, with written evidence, that the alert had now been completely removed from her records.