Public Health Ministry officials admit that an error was made when they threw out thousands of case files with clinical information on patients at the Luis Eduardo Aybar Hospital, now undergoing demolition. At the same time, the director of the National Archives, Roberto Cassa, described the destruction of the clinical histories as anomalous and in violation of the terms of the General Law of Archives Num. 481-08. He says no state institution can destroy documents if it does not have the approval of the agencies as established in the rules. Article 70 of the Archives Law establishes penalties in case of damage or destruction of any kind.
“For the National Archives the decision is even more questionable since representatives from this agency went to the site and discovered that recent case files had been destroyed,” said Cassa. He pointed out, in addition, that personnel from his institution visited and offered advice to this hospital and other health centers so that the decision surprised him and he considers it very strange. He recalled that these clinical histories have cultural, historical, personal and even family value and to say that they were “dead” documents is an erroneous concept, because every document has value to safeguard the health conditions of the patients and their descendants, for the country and for national heritage.
The director of the Metropolitan Health Region, Felix Hernandez, said nevertheless that a minimal number of the documents had been destroyed and that the vast majority (of case files) was in boxes inside a warehouse belonging to the hospital. Diario Libre reporters could not confirm this because the access keys could not be found. Hernandez said that the hospital began to digitalize the basic information of the patients, including names, addresses and file numbers in 2003.
As of yesterday, Wednesday 7 January 2015, the Minister of Public Health, Altagracia Guzman Marcelino had not yet commented on the situation.
http://www.diariolibre.com/noticias/2015/01/08/i958071_autoridades-admiten-fue-error-tirar-basura-historias-clnicas-pacientes-del-luis-eduardo-aybar.html