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Sask. man fighting to get another patient's drug overdose removed from his health record

Saskatoon man Kevin Robinson has been trying for three months to get officials to correct his electronic health record. A drug overdose was mistakenly attributed to him, and he worries it could affect his future care. He has Crohn's Disease. (Matthew Garand/CBC - image credit)
Saskatoon man Kevin Robinson has been trying for three months to get officials to correct his electronic health record. A drug overdose was mistakenly attributed to him, and he worries it could affect his future care. He has Crohn's Disease. (Matthew Garand/CBC - image credit)

Kevin Robinson has never overdosed on drugs, but he's had to spend the last three months proving it.

"This has been really, really frustrating," the Saskatoon business owner said.

Robinson, who has Crohn's disease, had some medical tests done in early January. Later that month, he logged on to his electronic health account to check the results.

"I noticed it said the night before I was in St. Paul's Hospital emergency at 1:30 in the morning. I was like 'Well, that's weird,'" Robinson said.

Robinson never went to the St. Paul's Emergency ward. His wife told him to call someone and clear things up.

Robinson sent a series of emails to hospital and health authority officials. Then he got another surprise — a $325 invoice for the ambulance ride he didn't take. On the invoice, it states the patient suffered an overdose.

"So now, I realize I've really got to get this off my record. If I ended up in emergency for any reason, it's going to show I had an overdose, which I did not," he said.

"I have Crohn's. If I end up in emergency, how they treat me could be different."

As he was dealing with the ambulance bill, the eHealth people, the St. Paul's Hospital staff and the Saskatchewan Health Authority, he learned a bit more of the story.

Robinson was told a man had been rushed to St. Paul's Hospital after suffering a drug overdose. The patient didn't have identification, and appears to have given paramedics a name that sounded like Kevin Robinson. The man also gave a similar birth date.

Robinson said he was passed around to various agencies, and some questioned his story. He offered to take a drug test or bring his wife to their office to testify that he was home in bed on the night in question.

Officials eventually promised to have the overdose deleted from his record, but nothing happened. After several weeks of waiting, Robinson enlisted the help of a lawyer but nothing changed.

Last Thursday, the Saskatchewan Health Authority and eHealth Saskatchewan issued a joint written statement to CBC News. They apologized for the inconvenience.

"This situation appears upon initial review to have identified an issue with inaccurate information being inputted into the source registration system," stated the response.

It's unclear why more research wasn't done before entering the overdose into Robinson's electronic file.

Friday, less that 24 hours later, Robinson called CBC News to say that the overdose has been removed from his record, and he's hoping this is the end of his "ordeal."

But Saturday he called again to say it's only been removed from his personal account — he spoke with his specialist and it's still showing up on the doctor's computer.

Robinson said his journey is not over.

"Are you kidding?" Robinson said. "Just the lack of help or urgency to resolve this from the people I've talked to in health care has been really frustrating."