Red Cross Blood Service admits to personal data breach affecting half a million donors

Updated about 5 hours ago

Fri 28 Oct 2016, 17:41

The personal data of 550,000 blood donors that includes information about “at-risk sexual behaviour” has been leaked from the Red Cross Blood Service in what has been described as Australia’s largest security breach.

Key points:

• Data from blood donor registration form posted insecurely online
• Leak included identifying information and “personal details” of 550,000 donors
• All copies of the data believed to be destroyed

The organisation said it was told on Wednesday that a file containing donor information was placed on an “insecure computer environment” and “accessed by an unauthorised person”.

The file contained the information of blood donors from between 2010 and 2016.

The data came from an online application form and included “personal details” and identifying information including names, gender, addresses and dates of birth, a Red Cross statement said.

Red Cross Blood Service chief executive Shelly Park said “due to human error” the unsecured data had been posted on a website by a contractor who maintains and develops the Red Cross website.

READ MORE OF ANOTHER RED CROSS BOTCH-UP:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-28/red-cross-blood-service-admits-to-data-breach/7974036

At least blood recipients will be able to track their donor’s blood!

These are the words by Australia’s former Prime Minister, The Hon Tony Abbott MP.  He said them on ABC News on Monday 16 September 2013 following his landslide election win.

They apparently do not apply to The Hon Jillian Skinner MP, Minister for Health, who again has transgressed into misleading the Parliament of New South Wales.

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Probe after second stillborn cremation error at RNS Hospital morgue

• Kate Aubusson, Harriet Alexander

• September 3, 2016
• The Sydney Morning Herald

For one Sydney family the news that a stillborn baby had been mistakenly cremated left them with a visceral sense of deja vu. They had lived through it three years earlier.

Fairfax Media can reveal that a 20-week stillborn baby boy was cremated in error at the same hospital – Royal North Shore – in late 2012.

Read Kate Aubusson and Harriet Alexander’s full story:

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/exclusive-probe-after-second-stillborn-cremation-error-at-rns-hospital-morgue-20160831-gr5itt.html

SYDNEY:  NSW Premier Mike BAIRD claims Health Minister Jillian SKINNER is the “best health minister”.  God help all of us.  He might want to try out one of HER hospitals and see how he fares.

Premier BAIRD claiming he’s saving thousands of dogs’ lives, but doesn’t give a damn for patients being killed and injured in our hospitals.

Both BAIRD and SKINNER are DEAD WRONG!

  NSW Health Minister’s perfect hospital

Patient whose breast ‘exploded’ after implant surgery calls for greater transparency of doctor’s history

ABC News A

Medical reporter Sophie Scott & national reporting team’s Rebecca Armitage

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-10/calls-for-transparency-of-doctors-legal-settlement-history/7704520

MEDIA RELEASE

Monday 8 August 2016

2016.08.08 MEAG MEDIA RELEASE – NSW Health Minister misled Parliament (website)

Yes indeed, New South Wales Health Minister the Honourable Jillian Skinner MP is in her own Emergency Department on life support.

She continues to play “I’m for patients” game.  But her record illustrates a different story.

Minister Skinner said she was doing everything she can to look after the patients caught up in the scandals.

Patients caught up in scandals?  She means she’s caught up in scandals.  The patients are the ones who get injured and killed.  She’s the one waiting to be caught.

NSW Health ‘failed my baby son and then covered up after he died’

• SHARRI MARKSON
• The Australian
• 12:00AM August 5, 2016

Sandra Bernobic watched with disgust as some NSW Health ­officials broke into smiles at the coronial inquiry into the death of her baby boy when a medical expert declared it was likely he would have died even if he had been given antibiotics to treat his meningitis.

READ FULL STORY:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/health/nsw-health-failed-my-baby-son-and-then-covered-up-after-he-died/news-story/518fa46c131deb6445046e130e003b2d

MEAG NOTE:  This is one of the cases the Medical Error Action Group wrote to Health Minister the Hon Jillian Skinner MP repeatedly about, of which she ignored, and misled the NSW Parliament on 3 August 2016. 

The Medical Error Action Group received a letter from NSW Minister for Health the Hon Jillian Skinner MP on 3 August 2016, but only after she read it in Parliament and distributed it to the media.

This is the first correspondence received from the Minister or her Ministry in almost 5 years, which states that ‘each matter has been resolved through correspondence with involved parties which at times may not have included the Medical Error Action Group’.

This is untrue.  The Minister continues to mislead the public.

St Vincent’s Hospital chemo under-dosing scandal spreads to other hospitals

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-03/plan-to-probe-nsw-cancer-chemo-under-dosing-unrealistic:doctor/7684224

NEW SOUTH WALES:  The woman whose husband died after he spent 21 hours undiscovered in a hospital toilet after suffering a stroke has labelled NSW Health Minister Jillian Skinner as a “waste of space”.

Her comments follow the latest hospital tragedy which left one newborn baby dead and another with severe disabilities.

As Mrs Skinner faces fresh calls to resign, an incensed Lexie Bugden told Sydney radio 2UE today the Health Minister had never contacted her, nor apologised for her husband’s death.

After hearing broadcasters speak to Mrs Skinner about her response to the death of a newborn baby after a gas mix-up at Bankstown-Lidcombe Hospital, Mrs Bugden phoned 2UE and let rip.

“She’s a waste of space. She really is,” Mrs Bugden said.

“I reckon that minister’s an absolute liar … they promised us it could never happen again.”

Read more:

http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/youre-a-waste-of-space-widow-slams-health-minister-jillian-skinner/news-story/6f0fe1ade5af839c2147e2ed38367bfc