The medical data of hundreds of asylum seekers who were received in a hotel in Hoofddorp have been erased or possibly even stolen. Trouw reports that the missing files were noticed by a subcontractor of the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) at the end of last month.
The COA had engaged healthcare company Just4Care to provide basic medical care to asylum seekers who were in the emergency shelter in the hotel in Hoofddorp. A medical file was drawn up for each resident, containing, in addition to personal data, information about heart problems or diabetes, for example.
Just4Care kept that data in Onedrive, Microsoft’s online storage that is also accessible from elsewhere. There, on March 25, all information had disappeared. How or why that happened is unclear.
Too late
According to Trouw, the healthcare organization only informed the victims after the newspaper had asked questions about it after anonymous tips. It was only then that a report was filed. Because a complete overview has not been kept of who has been taken care of at the location, it is also impossible to reach all affected residents.
“This is not the way we want things to go. That should have been done faster,” the COA responds in the newspaper. “We hire a party, then you assume that data is properly managed.”
Just4Care criticizes the COA, which did not provide the necessary software. “Dossiers even had to be on paper. We didn’t think that was possible and that’s why we used Onedrive.”
The care provider has now started new intake interviews for the current residents, currently about 350 people. A general practitioner information system has also been purchased.
