Doctors at B.C. hospital question why police eavesdrop on suspects in ER
Imagine taking a doctor into your confidence in a hospital emergency room, only to discover that someone else is recording the conversation on a smartphone. One of British Columbia’s busiest hospitals is wrestling with that very problem, and the someone else happens to be the local police.
Doctors at Royal Columbian Hospital in New Westminster have complained that local police and RCMP officers are routinely recording conversations without consent between doctors and patients who are considered a suspect in a crime.
“They will be present when we are trying to question the patients and trying to obtain a history of what happened,” said Dr. Tony Taylor, an emergency physician who practises at the hospital.
“They have now recently started recording these conversations and often they will do that unannounced, which has a number of implications around confidentiality and consent.”