A South African question
The principle that an individual's medical history should be private and not public information goes back to the Hippocratic Oath. The confidentiality of the patient-doctor relationship has been an assumption of medical ethics ever since and has been acknowledged by exemptions in freedom of information laws worldwide.
And the secrecy of a dead person's medical records was only last month by the Information Tribunal, after a hospital had refused to supply details to a mother about the treatment of her dead daughter. (Although it should be noted that the general position on a dead person's medical records is ).
But are there times when it's in the public interest for a living individual's medical records to be public and reported in the media? It looks like this issue may now in the row over the health minister Mantombazana Tshabalala-Msimang.
And it won't be the first time a politician's medical history has raised questions, from Tony Blair to Francois Mitterand.
So what was it that Hippocrates actually Only to keep secret that which should not be divulged.
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