By FRANCESCA MOLD health reporter
Files listing the names and addresses of women who had an abortion five years ago have been found in a disused private hospital in Auckland.
Police were called to Rawhiti Hospital on Mt Eden Rd on Sunday night by health authorities who had been alerted to the discovery of the files by the media.
The files apparently included the names and addresses of women who had abortions at the hospital from 1995, general administration papers as well as abortion authorisation forms. Information on the number of abortions done each month was also found.
When the Herald visited the hospital yesterday, the room containing the files was still unlocked with medical supply folders and a box entitled "patient operation list and bulletins January 1995-December 1995" inside.
The room is at the back of the main hospital building with overgrown grass and bushes around it.
Radio New Zealand had reported a "member of the public" raising concern after spotting the files several weeks ago while on the property for an unrelated matter.
To find the room, the person would have had to walk round high stone walls, climb over chains at the gate and push his or her way through bushes round the back of the hospital building.
The report also said the room was unsecured.
But a representative of First Security - the firm looking after the property for new owners Krukziener Properties - told the Herald the room had been padlocked but was broken into over the weekend.
Rawhiti Trust secretary John Hetherington said the hospital was run by the trust until last year.
It had been sold to Krukziener Properties, which planned to redevelop the buildings.
A spokesman for Krukziener said alarms had been installed in the main hospital buildings after a number of break-ins by vagrants and thieves trying to steal copper.
"If we had known there were such files left in the hospital, we would have had them removed," said the spokesman.
Mr Hetherington said he did not know why the files had been left behind. The trust had arranged for a security firm to destroy them.
Trust board chairman Dr Andrew Mackintosh, an obstetrician and gynaecologist, did not return calls yesterday. Dr Mackintosh is also a director of Ascot private hospital and clinics in Remuera, according to Companies Office records.
Privacy Commissioner Bruce Slane is investigating the incident which he said was of great concern.
Abortion files abandoned
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