This section contains information about health law and related programs. HALCO provides free information and advice about health law for people living with HIV in Ontario.
If you are living with HIV, you can contact us for free legal advice. You can contact the Ontario Lawyer Referral Service for up to 30 minutes of free legal advice: telephone 416-947-3330 or toll-free 1-800-268-8326, TTY 416-644-4886; www.lsuc.on.ca/faq.aspx?id=1146
For general HIV and health information, please visit our HIV Info section.
Health Information Privacy Issues in Ontario
Our Important Health Information Privacy Issues in Ontario Information Sheet (December 2010) contains important information about the release of personal medical information about:
- laboratory test information and the Ontario Laboratories Information System (OLIS), and
- prescription drug claim history and the Ontario Drug Benefit Program Drug Profile Viewer (DPV).
In April 2011, we made submissions regarding proposed amendments to the Regulations under the Personal Health Information Protection Act related to Ontario’s eHealth initiative. We were concerned that the proposed changes did not adequately protect the health privacy of people living with HIV in Ontario. In our submissions, we made recommendations that, if followed, would have given people more control over their own and others’ access to their electronic health information. We also recommended that the legislation include: a right to correct misinformation, the right to receive a report of all accesses to one’s own health information, and, the right to be informed directly by eHealth if one’s own health information has been accessed by an unauthorized person. Unfortunately, the regulation that the province filed in June 2011 is essentially the same as the one that was initially distributed for comment and did not reflect our recommendations.