MD NAZMUL v 1. ) GP UNIMEDIC J SDN BHD 2. ) Universiti Malaya (UM)

Case Significance

Confirms a patient's right to medical records under Regulation 44 of the Private Healthcare Facilities and Services Regulations 2006 but dismisses the application because the named defendants were not shown to possess the records and so were the wrong entities to be sued.

This High Court (Kuala Lumpur) decision concerns an originating summons by which the plaintiff sought to obtain his medical records from two defendants. The plaintiff relied, among other provisions, on Regulation 44 of the Private Healthcare Facilities and Services (Private Hospitals and Other Private Healthcare Facilities) Regulations 2006, which provides that a patient's medical record is the property of the private healthcare facility or service, that no such record may be taken out except under a court order (with a copy retained and the original returned at the end of the proceedings), and which sets out requirements for the making, dating, authentication and storage of entries in a patient's medical record. The application also invoked section 107(2)(g) of the Private Healthcare Facilities and Services Act 1998, Order 24 rule 7A of the Rules of Court 2012 and section 25(2) of the Courts of Judicature Act 1964.

The court accepted that the plaintiff was entitled in law to his medical records, but held that the plaintiff had first to show that the defendants were in possession of those records. On the evidence, the first defendant was a company, and there was no evidence that it had any relationship with the clinic where the plaintiff had been treated. Similarly, the second defendant, a university, was a separate entity from the medical centre where the plaintiff had been treated.

Concluding that there was no evidence to show that either defendant had the plaintiff's medical records in its possession, the court ruled that neither defendant was the correct entity against whom the originating summons should have been directed. It accordingly dismissed the originating summons with costs of RM3,000. The judgment illustrates that although a patient has a right to obtain medical records under the private healthcare regulatory regime, an application must be directed at the party that actually holds the records, and it will be dismissed where the named defendants are not shown to possess them.