A win for patients and families in Manitoba and for the fighting Manitoba Liberals in getting 24 hour access to health care records

On May 1st, the provincial government will implement 24 hours access for medical records for inpatients and their families. This is important so that patients and families can be full participants in care and that from this participation will come improved care and fewer medical errors and tragedies as happened with Mimi's mother.

For the last several years, I have been working with Mimi Raglan, Blake Taylor and other to get this change. On February 26th, 2006, together with Mimi and Blake I formally called for the government to make this change. (see my blog post for that date). Later that year, December 5, 2006, I introduced legislation to bring this into effect. Because of the spring election of 2007, the legislation had to be reintroduced after the election on June 14, 2007. It was debated that fall with the NDP Jennifer Howard saying it was not practical, Jim Maloway saying it was redundant and Jim Rondeau saying there should be help from the federal government.

In 2008, the government introduced changes to the Personal Health Information Act, but did not initially go further than 72 hours access to records. However, when Dr. Brian Postl announced the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority was going to introduced this change, it became apparent that we should be moving to 24 hour access and a further amendment to her legislation was introduced and the 24 hour access to medical records for inpatients became part of the bill. Finally, on May 1 of this year the legislation will come into effect and all Manitobans and where needed their families, will have 24 hour access to medical records when a person is an inpatient in a hospital.