Covid-19 gives rise to issues regarding confidentiality

ALTHOUGH the Constitution, statutory law and common law recognise a person’s right to privacy, during extraordinary times such as the Covid-19 pandemic, confidentiality must be breached to a degree to halt the spread of the virus.

So said University of KwaZuluNatal professor of law at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, David McQuoid-Mason, who looked at what Covid-19 meant for doctorpatient confidentiality in the latest edition of the SA Medical Journal.

“The Covid-19 pandemic has given rise to a number of ethical and legal issues affecting the doctorpatient relationship, particularly in respect of doctor-patient confidentiality.

“Doctors must therefore reassure their patients about the confidentiality of their consultations, and explain the ethical and legal situation,” McQuoid-Mason said.

The Covid-19 regulations provide that any person who has been confirmed as having the virus, clinically or by a laboratory, who is suspected of having contracted it, or who has been in contact with a person who is a carrier of Covid-19, may not refuse a medical examination.

That includes taking bodily samples; admission to a health establishment or a quarantine or isolation site; or submission to mandatory prophylaxis, treatment, isolation or quarantine or isolation to prevent transmission.

If a doctor takes a sample from a patient for testing for Covid-19, the clinician must record the patient’s name, identity or passport number, residential address and cellphone number, and obtain a copy or photograph of his or her passport, driving licence or ID, and promptly submit this information, with any information regarding the likely contacts of the person tested, to the director-general of health for inclusion in the Covid-19 Tracing Database, established in terms of the regulations.

“Information contained in the Covid-19 Tracing Database and any information obtained through the regulations is confidential, and no person may disclose any information contained in the Covid-19 Tracing Database, or any such personal or other information obtained through the regulations unless authorised to do so and unless the disclosure is necessary to address, prevent or combat the spread of Covid-19.

“Doctors should also tell their patients that any other information from their consultations that is not relevant to the Covid-19 preventive measures, or necessary to be disclosed in terms of any other law, will be kept confidential,” McQuoidMason said.

A person’s refusal or failure to subject himself or herself to the necessary medical examination, isolation, quarantine or test may be regarded as recklessness, and they could be prosecuted for intentionally exposing others to the risk of Covid19 infection, he said.