Obtaining copies of tests? Can we do this in Canada>

Hey all Canadians.

I was just reading another post where someone suggested obtaining a copy of all tests. '

Can we do the same in Canada? what are our rights when it comes to our charts. I've had the experience of a GI not telling me I had crohns disease until 2 years after he'd done the colonoscopy and other tests. He shared that info with my family DR. ....and they both decided I had enough on my plate so they would tell me later. I don't know how legal that was....I 'm from a teeny-tiny little town , where the doctors have brought most of the town's population into the world. '

But it has made me a bit weary , when a doctor now, tells me everything is fine....Do I have the right to look at my chart?

Mary

Marie Claire:

The information in your medical file belongs to you. You have the right to go over that information and your physician/hospital must make it available to you within a reasonable time frame of receiving the request. If you want copies those must be provided too, however there is a cost, usually, for duplicating your files. The cost varies from province to province and from institution to institution.

The only situation where physicians/hospitals have any discretionary power is when, in the doctor's opinion, the contents could impact your health -- ie: in cases of mental instability etc.

As far as withholding information from a patient, this is no longer an acceptable standard of practice and has not been for years and years. You have a right to now what is going on with your health. Did you ask about your condition and the results of the tests or just leave it to your GI to let you know what he thought was important. If you asked and were not told that is grounds for a complaint to the body (college) that regulates the practice of medicine in your province.

Marie-Claire:

You have been going through, perhaps, one of the most devastating things that can hit a mother/family. I am so very sorry. Although I haven't lived this experience personally I am very familiar with the cascade of issues that surrounds a disclosure of child sexual abuse. During my career as a journalist I was privileged to be invited into the lives of eight women dealing as adults with the effects child sexual abuse had on their lives. I was so shaken and moved by their stories, and their courage, that I persuaded the publication I was working for to let me do a full investigative series on how families, communities, educators, the justice and legal systems failed these women and what needed to change so that children could feel safe to break the silence.

The series ended up a finalist in the Michener Awards program for Meritorious public service in Journalism. It is the highest honour bestowed on newspapers in Canada and for a very small newspaper in a tiny own in Atlantic Canada, it was a very proud moment, but nothing compared to meeting one of these women in a public place after the series was published. We had agreed to protect these women's identities for privacy and legal reasons so I was surprised that she not only acknowledged me but put her arms around me and gave me a big from-the-heart hug. I'll never forget her words. "You've given me back my dignity. When I read my story through your eyes I felt the shame lift off my shoulders for the first time since i was old enough to know what he was doing was wrong."

So I do understand just a little about what you and your daughters are suffering. And I cannot imagine how you have managed to hold it all together in the face of this punishing disease. You say that things are finally resolving as far as your family's safety is concerned. If you are anything like me, now that the crisis is fading you might find yourself experiencing an increase in symptoms. I am one of those that can hold it together when the pressures on, but then I pay. It used to happen over and over -- when my daughters and husband have faced their health crises, I am like a human machine and never count the cost. I used to approach my career and family obligations the same way. It would have killed me to be undependable. Then when the project is over or the family is recovering and everything should be great, that's when I used to crash.

Took a lot of head work over the last three years to modify my life to protect me from myself.

So I hope you find a way to make sure that you get the care you need too, even if you have to snatch it in bits and pieces.

My thoughts are with you and your precious children. Never forget how fortunate they are to have you