BLENHEIM - The Privacy Commissioner, Bruce Slane, says Doug Kidd is wrong to blame youth suicides on the Privacy Act.
Mr Kidd, who is Kaikoura MP and Parliament's Speaker, had raised the issue at an election meeting in Seddon.
Afterwards, he said the Privacy Act was preventing family and friends from getting information about their loved ones who were in danger of committing suicide.
After having personal contact over the issue with a number of people, including friends, he said he had raised his concerns with Mr Slane but the response he got was unsatisfactory.
Mr Slane said yesterday that there were many reasons health professionals might withhold information and it was wrong to blame the act.
Mr Kidd said he followed up his initial concern by looking at reports from inquests into youth suicides.
"Up and down the country coroners have got sentences and paragraphs about these things but the Privacy Commissioner says it's not the fault of the act; it's the way it's being applied.
"I suggest that so many people can't be getting it wrong without there being some fault in the act."
Mr Kidd said he accepted there was some tension between disclosure and protecting privacy.
"But where you're dealing with potentially life-threatening situations, to cut off the very group that can succour, that can look out for and stop them in the end doing it ... just seems crazy.
"I put it in very simple terms - the Privacy Act is killing young people."
But Mr Slane said that if health professionals or agencies chose not to disclose information, it was not helpful or accurate to blame the Privacy Act or code.
He said that if deaths could be attributed to the failure of a health agency to notify someone about a patient, it had to be asked why it did not have a policy of doing so in some cases.
"Would medical ethics or the long-enshrined duty of patient-doctor confidentiality have permitted it to be done?"
Mr Slane said the code allowed agencies to set their own policies for collecting, using and disclosing health information.
In some cases, psychiatrists said that by giving information to families, they might lose the trust of the patient, who could withhold information or even cease treatment, and that might actually increase risks, Mr Slane said.
Health professionals had to take responsibility for their policies and be open and frank when explaining a decision.
"If that were done, observers such as Mr Kidd would not be misled about these situations and blame the law for what followed."
Mr Slane said he had conducted a review of the Health Information Privacy Code this year and called for public submissions.
All MPs were notified but none, including Mr Kidd, suggested any changes.
Mr Kidd said a review of the evidence in coroners' reports for people under 25 would be overwhelming.
Last week, Marlborough's coroners expressed concern about the high number of people committing suicide.
- NZPA
Youth suicide 'not fault of Privacy Act'
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