Boston hospital loses patients' records

BOSTON -- Patients are losing patience after a Boston hospital misplaced some medical and personal records.

Sixty-six patients at Massachusetts General Hospital were affected when a billing manager who was carrying the medical records accidently left them on a train.

Those affected were alerted immediately by the hospital, but now patients are concerned their identities could be stolen and private illnesses could become public knowledge.

"That's disastrous for people, to transport records in that manner," said one Boston resident.

One victim thinks Mass General needs to do more to protect people's privacy and calls the hospital's actions irresponsible.

Others understand the anger but say mistakes happen.

"Don't understand how it could happened, but stuff happens, i suppose, I'm sure it wasn't deliberate, just an accident," said a concerned citizen.

Mass General released a statement in part saying: "MGH police and security are thoroughly investigating the matter not only with an eye toward recovering the missing information but also toward making sure that this will not happen again."

The letter Mass General sent home to the patients with missing information lets them know about their rights as a patient as well as what to do to prevent their identities from being stolen.

The hospital has not said exactly what, if anything, they will do differently to prevent this from happening again.

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