Follow-up to “Where is the Circle of Care?”
In a follow-up to my essay “Where is the Circle of Care?”, I finally received the information I had been requesting from the New Brunswick public health department (NBPHD). Overall, it took 292 days to process the freedom of information (FOI) request. The 292 days had a 3 month delay because the New Brunswick ombudsman lost my complaint and failed to investigate for that time. The request was escalated to the ombudsman because the NBPHD refused to process the request, arguing that the titles of pages and the number of pages were personal health info (PHI); they refused to collaborate with the writer on a solution to process the request and to release the info. However, the ombuds did work with the writer on a compromise to release the info as organized on table 1.
Prior to escalating to the ombuds, each query directed to the NBPHD took about a month to process. There were about 3 queries in total; my intention was to understand what paperwork was being processed by Dr. Alier Marrero (to understand how efficient our healthcare system is), and after the first two unsuccessful attempts to receive information that would answer my question, I asked for the titles and number of pages that was processed (to see exactly what Dr. Marrero was processing).
In summation, I argue this is dangerously inefficient. 206 pages of paperwork (Table 1) were processed for one patient to meet statutory requirements related to reporting notifiable diseases and events. In the CBC article by MacKinnon (2023), they report that Dr. Marrero spent 6 hours processing 50 pages of paperwork for two patients. I imagine it would be dangerously inefficient to have a neurologist spend this amount of time away from care of patients, especially considering the oversight committee mentioned in MacKinnon’s article were looking at 48 patients, not to mention the 147 patients Dr. Marrero indicated he was following.
Thank you :)
References:
MacKinnon, B. (2023). Moncton neurologist asked for help, but alleges he was threatened with discipline instead. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/new-brunswick-neurologist-patients-public-health-canada-review-files-alier-marrero-1.6933797
Table 1
Type of Record Page count
Chemistry, hematology, histopathology, serology, microbiology test 122
CT, EEG, PET, MRI, X-ray, and other imaging 44
Nuclear medicine 27
Genetic testing 4
Administrative records (fax cover sheets, and transmission logs) 6
Public Health Surveillance Forms 3
Total pages 206