Japan: Two nurses in Tokyo were suspended from their jobs after they posted unauthorized videos of bedridden patients and the hospital premises.
According to Tokyo Reporter, the nurses working at a hospital in Matsudo City were dismissed from their jobs for taking footage of bedridden patients and posting it on social media.
According to the reports, the incident took place during a night shift on October 5 at Tokushukai Chiba Nishi General Hospital in Matsudo.
The Hospital said two nurses had filmed bedridden patients while working a night shift. The patients were lying in their beds, and the nurses allegedly took selfies with them.
The pictures were then posted on social media with mocking captions such as “seriously bored” and “This is boring.”
Many similar incidents have happened recently. Doctors and nurses across the world have gotten overly comfortable sharing pictures of patients and hospital premises on social media, breaching the privacy of patients in their most vulnerable state.
The influencer culture has taken over many professions, medicine being one of them.
A user @oisina18 on X said:
"I get that you're bored, but it's not good to post patients on SNS or make vulgar posts, right? If you have time, it seems better to study for exams or read books to learn all sorts of things."
On October 10, the hospital announced the disciplinary firing of two nurses. A third female nurse was strictly reprimanded for viewing the posts inside a private group.
A post on the hospital’s website by Director Kazuo Misumi on the facility’s website stated, “Content that is completely unacceptable for anyone involved in medical care was posted on social media. We offer our deepest and most sincere apologies.”
On October 9, the hospital also directly apologized to families of the patients whose videos and pictures were circulated online in such a vulnerable state. The hospital acknowledged that the post violated the patients’ privacy.
According to the reports, the hospital also reported the incident to the city police and local health authorities.
Due to the breach of the hospital's policies, the hospital stated that strict training sessions regarding patient privacy protection will be implemented.
The hospital also said that training sessions related to social media usage will be implemented to prevent similar instances in the future.
(Rh/ARC)