The Durrës Regional Hospital reacted after several media reports that a citizen from Durrës, with the initials AA, 52 years old, had lost his life after being discharged from the hospital and left on the street. According to doctors, the patient is alive, is in the Intensive Care Unit and has successfully undergone a second surgical intervention.
However, the denial only affects the part of the reporting related to the patient's death. The event that led to the public denunciation – the fact that he was taken out of the hospital and left outside in a serious condition – remains the core of the issue and still requires explanations from the responsible institutions.
But in an attempt to dispel the news of the patient's death, doctors at the Durrës Regional Hospital made public a series of data that belong to medical secrets. They revealed that AA is an HIV carrier, a heroin user, a beneficiary of methadone, and even stated that he is suspected of having consumed heroin before returning to the hospital.
This is data that pertains exclusively to the relationship between the patient and the doctor. It was not necessary to prove that the patient was alive and cannot be used as an argument to refute a media report.
A patient, regardless of his health condition, addictions or social conditions, cannot be turned into a means of institutional communication. The doctor's duty is to protect the patient's life and confidentiality, not to expose his medical history to respond to public criticism.
This is where the fundamental question arises: if, in order to refute a news story, a healthcare institution publishes diagnoses, infectious diseases, and data on a patient's addictions, has the legal and ethical obligation to maintain medical confidentiality been respected? This is not simply a communication problem, but a matter of patient rights and professional responsibility.
