DETROIT – A Detroit woman says her trust in a rehabilitation clinic has been shattered after discovering her personal information was scattered in the street.
“I see my date of birth, I see my address, I see my sex,” Gearldine Harper said as she looked at a photo of documents found on Longacre Street in Detroit over the weekend.
Harper’s information was among lots of other medical records found on the street.
The documents, a mound of files scattered across the roadway, contained patient information from Oakland Physical Therapy & Hand Rehabilitation clinics.
The city of Detroit removed most of the papers on Saturday, but on Monday (March 2), some were still visible on the ground.
“And that is frightening for that to happen and then for no one to inform me of my identity and stuff and medical records being lost,” Harper said.
To find out how and why the records ended up in the street, Local 4 went to two of the clinics seeking answers.
Staff at the locations were unable to respond, but later that day, an attorney for the company called.
The attorney said the landlord of one of the facilities in Southfield removed the documents without the clinic’s permission.
He said the company is working to determine how and why it happened and is handling required reporting to ensure patients’ information is not compromised.
“Stuff can happen at any facility, but you have broken a trust with me,” Harper said.
She said that trust was built years ago, when the rehab facility helped her after she fell.
The clinic sent a crew to Longacre Street to make sure any remaining documents were picked up.
Harper said that, since she had to provide the clinic with information such as her Social Security number, she plans to closely monitor her credit report for the next few months as a precaution.
And she suggests others do the same.