The Cnil displays “serious reluctance” concerning the government project which wants to allow liberal doctors to have the list of their unvaccinated patients.
- For the government, it is a way to push vaccination forward as the campaign stalls and the threat of a fourth wave looms.
Should information on vaccination be transmitted? While the question of compulsory vaccination, of caregivers but also of the population as a whole, continues to be debated, there is now that of the dissemination of vaccination information from patients to private doctors. The National Commission for Computing and Liberties (Cnil) is slow to give its answer after being seized by the government and displays “serious reservations”.
A breach of medical secrecy?
The desire to send the list of unvaccinated patients to liberal doctors comes from the unions. The government has taken up the torch and presented a draft decree which was on the Cnil’s agenda last Thursday. But for the independent authority, the subject is more complicated than imagined by the government. “We don’t have the answer, we’re not sure it’s allowed”, slipped to theAFP a union official after the usual point of the ministry on the vaccination campaign last Friday. Among the problematic points are “cross-referencing of files containing personal and medical data” and “the absence of prior agreement from the vaccinated persons”, underlines another source.
For the lawyer specializing in health law, Me Fabrice Di Vizio, the transmission of this list is contrary to medical secrecy. “The patient is the owner of the medical secret and the information whether he is vaccinated or not is part of this secret. Moreover, the patient does not have to authorize anyone to lift the secret and the doctor does not have to know information that the patient has not transmitted to him. This is an inadmissible institutionalized breach of medical secrecy, absolutely inadmissible. Doctors are losing the trust of their patients.”
The vaccine campaign is slipping away
For the government, it is a way to advance vaccination as the threat of a fourth wave grows ever more pressing. Contacted byAFP this Sunday, Olivier Véran’s office claims to be “in close collaboration with the CNIL and (to have) constructive discussions with it to be able to quickly allow doctors to have the vaccination data of their patients, because it is a major element to further accelerate vaccination in France”.
The vaccination campaign is currently idling with a drop in primary injections. Last week, and for the first time since the beginning of April, the number of first doses of vaccine fell below 200,000 injections per day, twice less than a month ago. Currently, just over 50% of the population has received their first injection and more than a third have both doses. In order not to lose touch during the holidays, the Minister of Health indicated that candidates can now make an appointment for two injections in two different places “including in the holiday areas where (they will) be required to go”.
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