A nurse accused of invading patients' privacy by snooping into their medical records has lost her bid to have her disciplinary hearing held in secret.

A disciplinary panel of the College of Nurses of Ontario denied Mandy Edgerton-Reid’s request to exclude the public, including the media, from a hearing into allegations that she looked at records of 300 patients at the Peterborough Regional Health Centre, without consent or authorization.

Her hearing will remain open to ensure public confidence in the administration of justice, the five-member disciplinary panel ruled in a written decision.

Reid had sought a closed hearing to protect patient privacy and to protect herself against a $5.6-million class-action lawsuit that has been brought against her and others in relation to the alleged privacy breach. Through her lawyer, Robert Stephenson, she expressed concern that testimony given in an open hearing could create prejudice in the civil action.

Contacted Monday, Stephenson said he had not yet read the decision so could not comment on it.

Lawyer Iris Fischer, who represented the Star and argued against a private hearing, said: “A closed hearing would have meant deciding on the alleged breach of privacy in secret, with no public scrutiny of the evidence. It’s great to see the panel recognize that discipline hearings should and routinely do take place in public, and there was simply no reason to close this one. Patient privacy is protected in virtually every case through a ban on publishing identifying patient information, and the panel affirmed that a publication ban goes far enough.”

The Star had also argued against a ban on the public disclosure of nonidentifying patient health information, which college counsel Megan Shortreed had sought. While publication bans on patient names and identifying information are commonplace in disciplinary hearings and are respected by the media, Shortreed acknowledged that a ban on patient health information is unusual.

But she argued it is necessary in this case, particularly to protect the two patients who filed complaints about Edgerton-Reid. The identity of one has already been made public in local media reports, but her detailed health information, which the college plans to introduce as evidence, has not.

As well, initials of both patients have been used in publicly available college documents.

Even if their names were not publicly disclosed in media reports on the hearing, readers might be able to put two and two together and figure out who they are and learn about their confidential health information, Shortreed argued.

On this point, the disciplinary panel ruled that the media can report on general information about the type of treatment received by patients, but not on specific personal health records that could identify them when used in combination with other publicly available information.

The Star had also sought access to exhibits. On this, the panel ruled that exhibits could be released only if they could be censored to exclude information covered by the publication ban it has ordered.

Edgerton-Reid is one of seven employees fired from the hospital under allegations they violated patient privacy in 2011 and 2012.

The Peterborough Examiner has reported that she was also fired from Fleming College where she worked as a part-time nursing instructor.

The College of Nurses’ website says she is accused of professional misconduct for allegedly accessing health information of about 300 patients and/or disclosing it without consent. She is also accused of accessing the health information of one of her students and disclosing it to other nursing students.

A former student has alleged Edgerton-Reid would search computer terminals at hospital nursing stations for medical records of people she knew and for cases she found interesting, according to the Examiner.

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Edgerton-Reid denies the allegations.

Her disciplinary hearing resumes on March 21.