PO-4631

In a request made under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, a law firm asked Orillia Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital for records related to a COVID-19 outbreak at a long-term care home. The hospital issued a decision to grant access to some of the records. An affected party appealed the hospital’s decision and said the mandatory exemption for third party information at section 17(1) of the Act applied. The long-term care home also claimed that the records were protected from disclosure by section 3 of Quality of Care Information Protection Act. Additionally, it said that the law firm’s request was an abuse of process and asserted that it should be permitted to apply various discretionary exemptions that the hospital did not apply. In this decision, the adjudicator dismisses the affected party’s appeal and upholds the hospital’s access decision.