Lawsuit possible over Western Health privacy breach

A lawyer in Corner Brook is looking into a possible lawsuit against Western Health over a massive privacy breach that saw an employee get sacked for accessing hundreds of confidential files.

Western Health said earlier this month it had fired the unnamed employee for accessing the files of 1,043 different patients. The disclosure was one of a series involving all four of the province's regional health authorities.

Lawyer Scott Burden said more than 100 people have approached him over the last two weeks, although he cautions that any legal action is still in the earliest stages.

"If we could get something started by the end of this year that would be great, but right now, even that’s guesswork," he told CBC News.

Burden said a possible class action suit would be aimed more at obtaining information and improvements than money for potential participants.

"I'm not looking at anyone getting rich on this," he said. "Most people want to know what happened, why it happened [and] how can it be fixed."