There are calls for an “immediate and urgent investigation” after a woman said she found private patient handover notes in a garden in Drogheda.

Labour Senator Ged Nash said the woman contacted him after finding the five pages of sensitive patient information earlier this week.

He said the documents appeared to come from of Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda

“I immediately advised the woman to make contact with the hospital and an official was dispatched to retrieve the five pages of sensitive patient information,” he said.

He said the documents included “names, dates of birth, medical conditions, treatment regimen and other extremely delicate information of the most confidential nature imaginable.”

“The patients concerned range across nearly all age groups and this episode represents an egregious violation of patient rights and privacy,” he said.

Drogheda hospital

He said it is “not the first breach of this nature at the hospital” and said it “seems nothing has been learned” nearly 12 months after strict new GDPR data protection laws were brought into force.

“This latest breach is utterly unacceptable,” he said.

“Patients and their families must be contacted urgently and met by senior officials.

“The Data Protection Commissioner must carry out an urgent investigation and the casual and dangerously irresponsible treatment of the most personal and sensitive of information by the health system needs to end and end now.”

The Royal College of Surgeons (RCSI) Hospital Group, which oversees the running of Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, has been contacted for comment.