Nurse acquitted for consulting a doctor’s health file. The judge for the preliminary hearings of Venice pronounced a sentence of no place to proceed in the confrontation of the Belluno LS, at the request of the trusted lawyer Alvise Antinucci. Prosecutor Christian Del Turco had accused her of unauthorized access to a computer system, asking for her to be indicted during yesterday morning’s hearing.
In the event of a conviction, the healthcare professional would have risked a sentence of three to eight years of imprisonment, naturally without probation, but the trial will not take place, because it has been proven that the access was due to an operational error.
On January 16 two years ago, the employee of the Belluno Health District was helping a colleague intent on organizing home care, when she was asked over the phone to check whether a person at the counter was eligible or not. The woman, however, gets a wrong name, similar to that of a doctor. She does not enter the right file, she realizes it and closes the file, but in the meantime the trace of her remains. After some time, during internal investigations of the health company, this apparently unjustified search emerges on the doctor’s electronic health dossier, the one that contains the health documents.
The competent prosecutor of Venice opens a file and the suspect explains to the judiciary not only that she was doing her job, but also that it was a material error. The explanation is not enough for the prosecutor, who does not believe in the hypothesis of the mistake: according to him, the suspect was curious to discover sensitive data of the doctor. During the discussion, Antinucci once more pointed out the operational error and obtained a favorable ruling.