Doctors hid missing teen

By AMANDA CAMERON

Doctors cited privacy laws in refusing to tell the distraught parents of a missing Auckland teenager where she was hiding - even though she was suffering a serious kidney condition.

The move has angered police and the parents of 15-year-old Emma Kelland who had mounted a public appeal for their daughter's return - and raised questions about how far doctors should go to ensure patients' privacy.

Emma disappeared from her parents' Howick home after a family argument on November 22. A fortnight later she visited the Te Awamutu Medical Centre complaining of being ill from a long-standing kidney condition.

The centre did not contact Emma's parents, Andrew and Cathy Kelland, but told her Auckland doctor, who later contacted the family.

However, neither the centre nor the GP would tell the Kellands, or the police, of Emma's whereabouts.

Eventually - more than two months later - police located Emma in a house in Te Awamutu where she had been staying with a 17-year-old boy and his father. She was sick, bedridden, dehydrated and had not eaten for four days.

Speaking from the family home, an angry Mrs Kelland recalled how the Te Awamutu Medical Centre "kept quoting the Privacy Act" when she and her husband had proof they were Emma's parents.

"All we wanted were her contact details - you know, just to find her," Mr Kelland said. "We were gutted. When you have a minor, you think you've still got parental rights, but no, you've got nothing, absolutely nothing."

Under the Privacy Act, health practitioners can face serious consequences if they disclose information without the patient's consent - no matter what their age.

However, the law permits them to breach patient confidentiality if doing so would help prevent "a serious and imminent threat" to the patient's, or anyone else's, health. Health practitioners must decide what this constitutes because the law is vague, leaving room for discretion.

Medical centre chairman Dr Andy von Biel said its policy was to protect doctor-patient confidentiality unless "we're ordered by a judicial body to reveal those details".

Mr Kelland said he believed privacy laws were applied too rigidly in Emma's case, describing her age and missing status as "pretty extenuating circumstances".

Police, too, were furious at the medical centre's refusal to hand over Emma's contact details.

It had meant extending an inquiry that had already consumed an enormous amount of scarce police resources, police said.

Otara Police Constable Craig Gibson, who found Emma "bedridden" in Te Awamutu and too sick to eat or drink, immediately detained her under the Child, Youth and Family Act. He believed she was living in "unsuitable conditions" with the 17-year-old boy and his father.

Constable Gibson said he thought the medical centre and others harbouring Emma should have considered her wellbeing over her wishes and the law.

Family GP Dr Stephen Dorairaj defended his actions, saying that when he learned another doctor had seen her, he alerted the family and police, giving enough information to find the doctor.

Emma said the medical centre had done the right thing. She said she was grown-up enough to care for herself, and had proved it by going to the centre when her kidneys flared up.

EMMA'S STORY

Nov 22, 2004: Emma Kelland disappears from her Howick home.

Dec 7: Emma visits the Te Awamutu Medical Centre.

Jan 20, 2005: Emma's usual GP informs the family and police that Emma has been seen by another doctor in Te Awamutu. Police ring the Te Awamutu Medical Centre to find out Emma's whereabouts, but the medical centre withholds Emma's phone number and address in Te Awamutu citing the Privacy Act.

Jan 24: The medical centre refuses to tell Emma's parents of her whereabouts.

Jan 27: Police locate Emma in Te Awamutu.

- Herald on Sunday