{"id":51121,"date":"2025-08-07T19:31:30","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T19:31:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/51121\/"},"modified":"2025-08-07T19:31:30","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T19:31:30","slug":"hospital-fined-thousands-after-patient-records-used-as-food-wrappings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/51121\/","title":{"rendered":"Hospital fined thousands after patient records used as food wrappings"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"w-full mb-4 text-body-6 md:text-body-5 font-body dark:text-neutral-white external:text-custom-content-text external:dark:text-custom-content-text\">A serious privacy scandal has rocked Thailand after medical documents meant for disposal were found repurposed in the most unexpected place, wrapped around snacks sold by local street vendors.<\/p>\n<p class=\"w-full mb-4 text-body-6 md:text-body-5 font-body dark:text-neutral-white external:text-custom-content-text external:dark:text-custom-content-text\">The private hospital has been fined 1.21 million baht (approximately US$37,000) after more than 1,000 pages of confidential patient records were discovered being used to wrap street food.<\/p>\n<p class=\"w-full mb-4 text-body-6 md:text-body-5 font-body dark:text-neutral-white external:text-custom-content-text external:dark:text-custom-content-text\">The breach first came to light in May 2024, when Thai influencer Doctor Lab Panda shared viral images showing a popular street snack wrapped in printed medical documents. Some of the papers clearly revealed sensitive details, including patient names, diagnoses, and lab results.<\/p>\n<p>Article continues after ad<\/p>\n<p>Hospital fined after medical record leak<\/p>\n<p class=\"w-full mb-4 text-body-6 md:text-body-5 font-body dark:text-neutral-white external:text-custom-content-text external:dark:text-custom-content-text\">Following widespread backlash, Thailand\u2019s Personal Data Protection Committee (PDPC) launched an investigation into the incident.<\/p>\n<p class=\"w-full mb-4 text-body-6 md:text-body-5 font-body dark:text-neutral-white external:text-custom-content-text external:dark:text-custom-content-text\">As reported by the <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\" class=\"hover:text-vertical-primary underline decoration-2 underline-offset-4 decoration-vertical-primary\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bangkokpost.com\/thailand\/general\/3080090\/hospital-fined-after-patient-files-used-as-snack-bags\">Bangkok Post<\/a>, the PDPC confirmed on August 1, 2025, that the hospital had violated the Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) and issued a fine of 37k USD for failing to properly safeguard and dispose of patient data.<\/p>\n<p>Article continues after ad<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"cursor-zoom-in\" style=\"color:transparent\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Hospital-fined-after-medical-record-leak-1024x576.jpg\"\/>PDPA Thailand<\/p>\n<p class=\"w-full mb-4 text-body-6 md:text-body-5 font-body dark:text-neutral-white external:text-custom-content-text external:dark:text-custom-content-text\">The hospital, which was not named in the report, is located in Ubon Ratchathani province, and investigators found that it had outsourced its document disposal to a small, family-run contractor who improperly stored the records at home instead of destroying them.<\/p>\n<p>Article continues after ad<\/p>\n<p class=\"w-full mb-4 text-body-6 md:text-body-5 font-body dark:text-neutral-white external:text-custom-content-text external:dark:text-custom-content-text\">While the hospital received the brunt of the fine, the contractor also had to pay 16,940 baht ($523) for mishandling personal information. Authorities have now urged all healthcare providers and data handlers to tighten their privacy protocols, warning that future lapses could result in further legal action.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A serious privacy scandal has rocked Thailand after medical documents meant for disposal were found repurposed in the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51122,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[64,63,137,500],"class_list":["post-51121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-health","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}