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Doctors and nurses have been told to keep their voices down to avoid broadcasting sensitive details about patients in busy hospital wards.
Waikato District Health Board's clinical chiefs have sent staff a memo reminding them of their "auditory privacy" obligations, and telling them not to leave patient records accessible to the public.
The issues were picked up by external auditors.
In audit documents obtained by the Herald under the Official Information Act, the staff are told to lower their voices on ward rounds, take patients to private rooms when possible, be careful when discussing patients in mobile phone conversations, protect patient records; and not to display patient information on whiteboards visible to visitors.
Chief operating officer Jan Adams said yesterday the whiteboards - which contained only patients' names and room numbers, not clinical information - would be moved so only staff could see them.
The Waitemata Health Board's director of nursing and midwifery, Jocelyn Peach, said all healthcare facilities faced the same issues.
Waitemata staff were reminded at every opportunity about the kinds of measures outlined in the Waikato audit.
"Privacy is one of those things in a busy clinical environment where people just forget where they are sometimes," Miss Peach said.
Hospitals were cramped and privacy was difficult in multi-bed rooms and emergency departments.
"Other patients in the room hear things they shouldn't. Sometimes they are listening through the curtains.
"It's really difficult for staff because they don't have enough space. In four-bedded rooms you have to keep your voice down and be as private as you can be. Some of our elderly patients, when we ask questions, are hard of hearing and we try and be quiet and they say, 'Speak up dear'."
Complaints about bigger matters were occasionally aggravated by other patients having overheard personal details.
"All we can do is apologise because we don't have the space to move people around to a quiet place."
Waitemata patients' records were not kept on clipboards at the end of their beds, but usually inside a trolley at nurses' stations, she said, and whiteboards were already placed so they could be read only by staff.
Counties Manukau board senior legal adviser Janet Anderson-Bidois said staff attended a session on privacy when hired, and annual refreshers were held.
"Reminders about privacy are sent to employees and we recently held a privacy awareness week," she said.
