Fairfax Media made a request to the Tairawhiti District Health Board (the DHB) for information regarding one of its general surgeons, including information about a complaint and his surgery statistics. The DHB refused the request under section 9(2)(a) of the Official Information Act 1982 (OIA) in order to protect the privacy of the individual concerned. Based on the information before me, I have concluded that section 9(2)(a) provided good reason to withhold most but not all of the requested information.
The disclosure of the requested work-related information is an important aspect of a DHB’s accountability for the work of its general surgeons (as indeed would be the case for an information request about the workload of other senior medical officers). Surgeons are highly qualified specialists employed in the publicly funded health system to provide health services for patients. There is a public interest in members of the community and the media being able to access data about the nature (eg, type of procedure and quantity) of work performed by specialists in New Zealand’s public hospitals. I recommend that the DHB release information relating to the number and type of procedures performed by the surgeon at the DHB.