Police Snooping On Patients, Health Workers Claim

Representatives of local doctors and nurses on Sunday urged the police to stop approaching health-care workers seeking information on patients.

The call follows the arrest of five people seeking public hospital treatment who were suspected of taking part in the June 12 clashes.

More than 50 members representing doctors and health-care workers in the Election Committee said this practice could hinder patient care and breach data privacy.

In one case, they said police officers - without their warrant cards - went to a public hospital's cubicles to listen into nurses' conversations.

They said they also verbally threatened some nurses to try to get patient details.

The group's spokesman, Wong Yam-hong, said he's worried that this practice is creating a climate of fear and was deterring injured protesters from seeking medical treatment:

He said they were afraid to seek medical treatment from public and private hospitals and from general practitioners.

"In the future, if there are such mass conflicts happening again, there will be more and more of these patients refusing to get medical help - and this is indeed a public health care crisis in the making," Wong said.

Last week, medical sector lawmaker Pierre Chan also said the police were able to find and arrest people injured in the June 12th protests because they had been given secret backdoor access to the Hospital Authority's patient database.

The police denied the allegation, and said they made the arrests through normal police work by officers on duty at the hospitals.