The hospital where a California woman gave birth to octuplets in January has been fined $250,000 by the state because nearly two dozen medical workers, including doctors, illegally viewed her medical records, according to state health officials.
Kaiser Permanente’s Bellflower hospital, where Nadya Suleman’s eight babies were born, revealed in March that 15 employees lost their jobs and eight others were disciplined for improperly accessing her computerized medical records. There was no evidence that information from the medical files was leaked to the news media, which has intensely covered Suleman’s story, according to Kathleen Billingsley, deputy director of the California Public Health Department’s Center for Health Care Quality. Six of the privacy breaches happened at other Kaiser Permanente facilities, which are linked into the same computer system housing medical records. Suleman — already a single mother with six children — gave birth to octuplets conceived through in vitro fertilization, fueling controversy. News of her collecting public assistance for some of her children outraged many taxpayers. Suleman lives in La Habra, in Southern California.
