Hospital Accidentally Sends Mom 10 Other Kids' Results
DAVIS (CBS13) - A mom who was waiting to get her child's blood tests results is angry about an alleged medical mistake by the hospital that may have broken the law.
"This is serious. You don't give children's medical results on tests out to a total stranger," said Sheilla Rush.
Rush says UC Davis mistakenly mailed her the test results of 10 other kids she doesn't know.
"This is just extreme negligence," said Rush.
She calls it a shocking and illegal mistake.
"As I started going through it, I says, 'wait a minute, I don't know these people,' " said Rush.
Included with her 11-year-old's medical test results from UC Davis, Rush says were the results of other kids.
"There was just child after child after child -- there's about 10 of them," she said.
Stacks of papers had the personal information of 10 children seen by a specialist just a few days ago.
"They've got their address, their names -- all kinds of very personal private information, whether the tests come out positive or negative," said Rush.
It's an alleged mistake that could be a violation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which protects the privacy of patients.
After receiving the other patients' documents, Rush says she immediately called UC Davis' CEO, but coulnd't get through.
"They told me she doesn't take calls," Rush said.
However, Rush won't take no for an answer. She believes the parents have no idea that she received their kids' test results. These are children who traveled from all over California to see the same UC Davis specialist Rush took her daughter to see.
"I feel bad for these kids because, some of these, they're supposed to start their kids on stuff and they have no knowledge of it," she said.
Rush says she is afraid to hand over the papers to the hospital because she thinks it may not confess to the medical mail mishap.
"Every parent here has the right to know," she said.
UC Davis spokesperson Phyllis Brown issued the following statement: "We do everything in our power to attempt to satisfy all of our patients, and patient confidentiality is one of our highest concerns."
UC Davis says it will be looking into this incident beginning Friday morning.
