Everyone admires people who charge into burning houses for a living. But the Tacoma Fire Department has gone wacko about telling the public about such acts of heroism – or rather, not telling the public about them.
Consider this line from a News Tribune story Friday about a man being pulled from his burning house by Tacoma firefighters:
“Citing federal privacy laws, the Fire Department wouldn’t release any information about the man, his injuries or even whether he was rescued.” (Italics added.)
Yes, the rescue couldn’t be confirmed. Although it happened in broad daylight. Although it was on television news. Although the neighbors were standing outside watching it. Despite all this, fire officials felt they couldn’t acknowledge that Tacoma firefighters may have saved the man’s life.
No other fire department we know of handles routine emergency calls as if they were state secrets.
The culprit here is a gross misunderstanding of the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which forbids disclosure of personal medical information.
The TFD has begun acting as if HIPAA prevents it from sharing any information whatsoever about anyone who’s had any kind of medical problem – even if nothing about the medical problem itself or even the person’s name is disclosed. The mere fact that a human being was rescued at a particular location seemingly can’t be acknowledged.
The TFD takes its reading of HIPAA to baffling extremes. Once in 2006, for example, a TFD dispatcher told a News Tribune reporter that an incident he had asked about “happened in Washington.” Nothing further – not the location, not the type of response – was disclosed.
When the Atlas Foundry erupted in fireballs last October, the fire department refused to confirm that it had transported anyone to the hospital. It wouldn’t verify the number of the injured (three), as if that detail would somehow reveal too much.
This defies all logic. It is frustrating for journalists trying to report the news – and a massive explosion at a local factory is news. It ought to be just as frustrating for the public.
People working or driving in the vicinity of the Atlas Foundry that day, for example, had a compelling personal interest in knowing just how dangerous the situation was. The public in general has a compelling interest in knowing what their tax- supported fire department is doing.
City Manager Eric Anderson ought to order a competent review of the department’s policy, one that balances the mandates of HIPAA against the state’s public disclosure laws.
Medical privacy is a good cause. What the Tacoma Fire Department doing, though, takes that cause far past the point of absurdity. There’s another good cause at stake here, too: open government. It would be nice if the TFD were giving it a tenth as much weight.
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