Privacy Policy

St Vincent’s is committed to protecting the privacy of the personal information and sensitive information which it collects and holds.

St Vincent’s complies with the Australian Privacy Principles under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and other Commonwealth and State privacy laws that govern how we handle personal information collected and held about you.

Where St Vincent’s provides health services in New South Wales, those St Vincent's entities are also bound by the Health Records and Information Privacy Act 2002 (NSW) (and its Health Privacy Principles). In respect of health services provided by St Vincent’s Health Network Sydney, the Privacy Policy - St Vincent's Hospital Sydney applies to those services in addition to this Privacy Policy.

Where St Vincent’s provides health services in Victoria, those St Vincent's entities are also bound by the Health Services Act 1988 (Vic) and Health Records Act 2001 (Vic) (and its Health Privacy Principles). In respect of health services provided by St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne, the policy, Your Privacy - St Vincent's Hospital Melbourne, applies to those services in addition to this Privacy Policy.

The privacy principles under Commonwealth and State laws are generally aligned and not intended to be inconsistent. St Vincent’s applies those principles to our relationship with patients, residents, care recipients, employees, volunteers and service providers. St Vincent’s requires all staff and contractors who work with us to similarly adhere to those privacy principles.

This Privacy Policy explains:

• the kinds of information that St Vincent’s may collect about you
• how St Vincent’s collects and holds personal information;
• the purposes for which St Vincent’s collects, holds, uses and discloses personal information;
• how St Vincent’s maintains the quality and security of your personal information;
• how you can access the personal information St Vincent’s holds about you and seek to correct such information; and
• the way in which you can complain about a breach of your privacy and how St Vincent’s will handle that complaint.

When used in this Privacy Policy, “personal information”, “sensitive information” and “health information” have the meanings given to those terms in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).  References in this Privacy Policy to personal information include sensitive information and health information.

2.1 Personal information 

In general terms, “personal information” is any information or opinion that can be used to personally identify you including your name, address, telephone number, email address and date of birth. Information we collect about you will be considered personal information where it identifies you or you are reasonably identifiable from the information.

2.2 Sensitive information

“Sensitive information” is a subset of personal information and includes your race, religion, sexual orientation, criminal record, biometric information and health or genetic information. Generally, sensitive information requires a higher level of protection than other personal information.

2.3 Health information

“Health information” is a subset of sensitive information and in general terms is any information or opinion about your illness, injury or disability such as notes of your symptoms or diagnosis, health services you’ve had or will receive, specialist reports, test results and appointment and billing details.

St Vincent’s conducts public and private hospitals, aged care homes, retirement villages, virtual and home care, disability and outreach services and outpatient clinics.  Crisis accommodation for women and children escaping domestic and family violence is conducted by St Vincent’s Clinic. Our activities include medical research, fundraising and community activities.

St Vincent’s collects information that is reasonably necessary to facilitate the relevant service we provide to you or to engage with you to respond to an enquiry.

If your doctor or other health practitioner has their own private consulting rooms at a St Vincent’s facility, including St Vincent's Clinic, that doctor or health practitioner will maintain their own separate medical records about you. If you have an enquiry about those records, please contact your doctor or health practitioner directly. 

3.1 Patients, residents and care recipients

If you enquire about, or become, a:

• patient of a St Vincent’s hospital,
• resident of a St Vincent’s retirement village or aged care home,
• care recipient of a St Vincent’s clinic, outreach, virtual or home care service or

• client of a St Vincent's crisis accommodation facility (also referred to as ‘care recipient’ of an outreach service in this Policy)

we will collect personal information to assess your eligibility and provide you with the health, aged care or other service you need or have enquired about.

Usually, we will collect your health information directly from you. There may be times when we need to collect information about you from someone else such as a relative or another health care provider. This only occurs where you have provided consent or it is not reasonable or practicable for us to collect the information direct from you, for example, your health is at risk and we need your personal information to provide emergency medical treatment to you. 

The personal information we may collect includes:

• name, address, date of birth, contact number and email address
• sexual orientation
• marital status
• occupation, profession or job title
• next of kin or emergency contact details
• country of birth, ethnic origin and preferred language
• religion
• medical and surgical history including vaccination status, pathology and radiology test results, details of your other treating health practitioners including referrals
• organ donor status
• end-of-life planning documents such as your advanced care directive, statement of choices or appointment of enduring guardian or power of attorney, depending on which State you live in
• health fund insurance details
• Medicare number
• Individual Healthcare Identifier from Medicare to identify and access your records in the My Health Record system unless you have modified your access controls or an exception applies
• Australian Immunisation Register record
• credit card, direct debit, concession card or PBS entitlement details
• other financial information if you are or have agreed to pay us directly for aged care or retirement village services we provide to you
• a photograph or video of you if this is necessary for us to provide clinical care to you in certain circumstances
• personal information that you provide directly or indirectly when using our websites or other relevant online service
• personal information you provide to our patient experience or consumer service representatives, our reception desks and when you respond to consumer feedback surveys.

3.2 Other individuals

Depending on the reason other individuals engage with St Vincent’s, we may also collect personal information from:

• visitors to patients, residents and care recipients at any of the St Vincent’s hospitals, aged care homes or retirement villages
• your next of kin, emergency contact, authorised representative, registered supporter or any other persons involved in your care
• health practitioners including visiting medical officers, honorary medical officers and allied health practitioners
• employees, volunteers, students, trainees, job candidates and their referees
• contractors and other service providers to St Vincent's

• individuals who support St Vincent’s fundraising activities.

Usually, we collect your personal information directly from you. There may be times when we need to collect information about you from a third party. We will only do this when it is not reasonable or practicable for us to collect the information directly from you. Sensitive information will not be collected without your consent unless required and authorised by law.

Visitors, next of kin, emergency contacts and authorised representatives 

We may collect personal information from visitors, next of kin, emergency contacts, authorised representatives and registered supporters to assist us to provide services to a patient, resident or care recipient or for our administrative or business services.

Health practitioners

We collect personal information about health practitioners depending on the role they are performing for St Vincent’s. For instance, if you are a medical practitioner seeking accreditation at one of our hospitals, we will collect relevant information for our credentialling process that enables your access to our facilities and systems. We may also use your contact information to display on the “Find a Specialist” section of our websites. Referring medical practitioners’ and allied health practitioners’ personal information may also be collected for identification purposes.  We may also collect your Healthcare Provider Identifier-Individual to facilitate your access to our systems to provide information to My Health Record. 

Working or volunteering for St Vincent’s

We collect personal information about employees, students, trainees, job candidates and their referees and contractors depending on the role you are performing for St Vincent’s. For instance, if you are a job applicant or volunteer, we will collect information necessary for us to assess your application and to employ you, if successful, including background checks and speaking with your referees. We may continue to collect information about you during your engagement with us where it is relevant to your role. For instance, biometric information (face recognition or fingerprint) for access to a St Vincent’s owned device, vaccination status, training, AHPRA and other relevant occupational registration records.

Individuals who assist with fundraising activities

St Vincent’s will collect your personal information when making a donation, unless you ask us not to, for the purposes of recording and managing the donation and issuing you a receipt. This includes your name and address and any relevant terms of the donation. St Vincent’s will not use your personal information relating to the donation without your consent.

4.1 Collection from you

Usually, St Vincent’s will collect your personal information directly from you when you:

• complete any St Vincent’s forms, in paper or online, related to admissions, requests or enquiries including when you submit information
• visit or receive care in person at a St Vincent’s hospital, aged care home, retirement village or outreach service
• receive care via a St Vincent’s online or virtual service
• speak with our employees or representatives by phone
• access and use our website including completing any webform

• email personal information to us. 

St Vincent’s cannot guarantee the security of your personal information if you email us using unsecured email. Once your emailed information is received by us, the email and its contents are held securely in our systems.

4.2 Collection from third parties

St Vincent's may also collect information about you from a third party.  We will only do this when you have provided consent and it is not reasonable or practicable for us to collect the information directly from you.  Examples include collecting information from:

• your referring doctor or health service provider when you are referred to St Vincent’s

• other doctors, health practitioners and health service providers during the service St Vincent's provides to you

• your relatives, friends, authorised representatives or registered supporters involved in your care

• government agencies such as State or Territory health departments, Services Australia (Medicare, Centrelink), Department of Health, Disability and Ageing (including My Aged Care), National Disability Insurance Agency or Department of Veteran’s Affairs
• private health funds or other insurer responsible for payment of our services
• your referees or past employers

• another St Vincent's entity listed in Section 15.

There may be times when St Vincent’s collects personal information about you from a third party when you have not provided consent and it is not reasonable or practicable for us to collect the information from you in the following circumstances:

• we need to provide you with immediate care or treatment

• we consider it necessary to take appropriate action in relation to suspected unlawful activity or serious misconduct

• we collect information included in your My Health Record as authorised by the My Health Records Act 2012 unless you have modified access controls or an exception applies

• where reasonably necessary for the management, funding or monitoring of our services 

• a clinical researcher has applied to one of our Human Research Ethics Committees in connection with research proposed to take place at a St Vincent’s hospital, aged care home or retirement village or a clinical researcher using personal information held by us

• otherwise permitted by law.

If St Vincent’s receives personal information about you from a third party that we did not request, and we determine that we would not have been permitted to collect that information under relevant privacy laws, we will destroy or de-identify that information.

4.3 Surveillance

St Vincent’s uses CCTV and other optical/video surveillance systems to maintain the safety and security of our patients, residents, care recipients, employees and visitors. Applicable surveillance laws apply to how St Vincent’s uses those systems to collect and store personal information. Signage is used at locations where optical/video surveillance are in operation.

Tracking devices may be installed (and labelled) to protect valuable equipment such as mobile medical equipment, laptops and vehicles.

4.4 Inaccurate or incomplete information

St Vincent’s collects the minimum amount of personal information necessary to provide you with a service you need or have enquired about.  Without accurate or complete personal information about you, St Vincent’s:

• may not be able to provide you with complete services, or information about services
• may not allow you to enter or attend our facilities to receive or provide a service

• may not be able to progress your application if you are applying for accreditation or to work or volunteer with us.

4.5 Anonymity and pseudonymity

Where possible and practicable, you will have the option to deal with St Vincent’s on an anonymous basis or by using a pseudonym. However, this may limit our ability to provide you with the services that you need or are enquiring about or to engage with you effectively.

St Vincent’s will use and disclose your personal information for the primary purpose it was collected. St Vincent’s may also use and disclose your personal information for secondary purposes where required and permitted by relevant laws. How we do this depends on the service we are providing to you. Some examples of the ways we use and disclose personal information are set out below. 

Where St Vincent’s outsources any of its services or hires contractors to perform professional services, we require them to also comply with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (and any other relevant privacy legislation) and where applicable, this Privacy Policy.

5.1 Patients receiving hospital care

St Vincent’s may use or disclose your personal information (including health or other sensitive information) to:

• facilitate the care and treatment you need from our staff and your treating doctors who may consult with other medical experts to determine your diagnosis or treatment including participating in multi-disciplinary team meetings
• refer you for pathology and radiology tests including sharing of clinical images with medical experts located remotely to determine your diagnosis or treatment
• refer you for allied health services such as a physiotherapy during your admission or upon discharge
• provide a copy of your discharge summary to your local doctor or other health practitioner or health service provider
• liaise with the manufacturer of any prosthesis or other implantable medical product as part of your treatment, to ensure appropriate supply of that product and enable follow-up with you
• liaise with third party pharmaceutical suppliers if you require medicines to ensure appropriate supply and enable follow-up with you
• liaise with the manufacturer or supplier of robot-assisted equipment to ensure appropriate use of the equipment and enable follow-up with you.

5.2 Residents and recipients of aged care, retirement village, outreach, virtual and home services

St Vincent’s may use or disclose your personal information (including health or other sensitive information) to:

• assess your suitability for our services and determine whether we can provide the level of aged care, outreach, virtual and home care, or disability support you require
• coordinate the aged care or retirement village services you need from our nurses and care staff and your visiting treating doctors or allied health service providers including pharmacists, occupational therapists and physiotherapists
• in our aged care homes, assist our staff to know you better including displaying your name and photo in your room and discussing your lifestyle, activity and food preferences with you
• coordinate the outreach, virtual or home services you need from our staff
• comply with our reporting obligations under any relevant agreements or laws to entities such as the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission, Department of Health, Disability and Ageing (including My Aged Care), Department of Veteran’s Affairs, National Disability Insurance Agency or State based child protection services or law enforcement agencies.

5.3 Other uses in our hospitals, aged care homes, retirement villages, outreach, virtual and home services

St Vincent’s may also use or disclose your personal information (including health or other sensitive information) to:

• facilitate your transfer to another St Vincent’s facility, service or heath care provider to ensure continuity of care including any ambulance or patient transfer service
• inform your nominated next-of-kin, guardian, close friend or authorised representative about your treatment and condition unless you tell us not to
• facilitate pastoral care from pastoral care practitioners employed by us or visiting representatives of other faiths, where applicable, unless you tell us not to
• comply with our reporting obligations under relevant laws to the Australian Digital Health Agency, which operates My Health Record, including uploading your discharge summary electronically unless you tell us not to
• comply with other reporting or contractual obligations including where St Vincent’s provides public health services under agreements with Commonwealth or State governments and we are required to share those patients’ details with the relevant government agency
• comply with our contractual reporting obligations to the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, which operates My Aged Care
• communicate with Medicare, your private health insurer, government agencies or other individual(s) financially responsible for funding the services we provide to you
• billing or debt recovery
• notify a third party claims manager where you require health services that are funded or coordinated by a third party in relation to an injury claim (eg. WorkCover, personal injury or similar)
• send you reminders and information about appointments or admissions by text message and/or email to the number or email address you have provided to us
• respond to your enquiries about any of the St Vincent’s services or products
• invite you to participate in a patient, resident or care recipient survey or quality improvement activity
• manage our business and operations including audits (clinical and non-clinical), service planning, quality assurance and improvement activities, accreditation, consumer experience assessments, complaint handling and claims investigation and management
• identify and contact you about your suitability to participate in clinical research studies or clinical trials.  St Vincent’s will not disclose your personal information to a researcher without your consent or unless permitted by relevant privacy laws
• manage research governance review applications for research to be conducted at a St Vincent’s facility or involving data held by a St Vincent’s facility
• facilitate the teaching and learning of employees, health practitioners, students and trainees at St Vincent’s
• our fundraising partners but only where you have provided consent to do so
• maintain the safety and security of our staff, patients, visitors and other attendees where St Vincent’s uses CCTV and other optical/video surveillance systems such as body worn cameras
• a new provider if St Vincent’s sells or transfers a facility where you are a resident or receiving services. We will take reasonable steps to notify you if your personal information is disclosed to a third party upon the sale, transfer or closure of a St Vincent's facility.

5.4 Non-patient specific examples

In addition to the examples above, St Vincent’s may use and disclose personal information as follows:

• where you are a job applicant, student or volunteer, to:
  • assess your suitability for employment, engagement or placement
  • manage your employment, engagement or placement with us
  • engage a third party to conduct background checks (with your consent)
  • make notifications to our insurers for work health and safety purposes and manage any workers’ compensation claim
  • ensure we have your relevant contact details and next-of-kin or other personal representative’s details
• store information provided by unsuccessful job applicants for future recruitment or employment opportunities
• where you are a registered health practitioner seeking accreditation, to:
  • assess your suitability for accreditation to our facilities under relevant St Vincent’s by-laws
  • manage your access and ongoing accreditation to our facilities under the by-laws
  • ensure the ongoing quality and safety of the care you provide to patients of St Vincent’s
• to process and respond to any complaint made about an employee, contractor, registered health practitioner, student or volunteer
• to engage with regulators or professional bodies responsible for professional conduct and professional practice matters
• use or disclosure to our third party contracted service providers such as software and information technology suppliers, providers of agency staff, consultants and auditors, in respect of professional services they provide to us
• disclosure to comply with applicable laws such as responding to a subpoena or compulsory reporting to a Commonwealth or State government agency (eg. State based child protection or law enforcement agency, public health unit, or NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission or Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission in respect of any St Vincent's key personnel)
• disclosure to a medical expert (for a medico-legal opinion), insurer, claims manager or lawyer for the purpose of addressing liability indemnity arrangements (such as reporting an adverse incident), legal proceedings or obtaining legal advice.

Ordinarily, St Vincent’s stores your personal information at premises or data centres located in Australia, which may be owned by us or by third parties. Where St Vincent’s has arrangements with third party providers to store data, those providers may use data centres overseas in the Asia Pacific, European Union or Canada. For example we have contracted with Microsoft to provide a suite of cloud hosted software solutions to support our business. The personal information in those Microsoft solutions is located in the Asia Pacific region. When overseas data storage occurs, we ensure compliance with privacy law requirements that relate to cross border disclosures of personal information. Our agreements with those third party providers require them to have information security protections that are substantially similar to the Australian Privacy Principles.

We also use service providers that have employees located overseas who may need to access our systems and the personal information in those systems to perform their services. For example, technical support staff on help desks of software providers to St Vincent’s outside Australian business hours.

Under our agreements with those service providers, we require them to ensure that they do not breach Australian privacy laws when they store, process or access personal information overseas.

St Vincent's is a not-for-profit health, aged care and community service provider, which relies on the generosity of the community to successfully provide high quality care to our patients, residents and care recipients.

We will only use your personal information for direct marketing if you give us your consent to do so. As part of your hospital admission, you will be asked on your admission form whether you do not wish to be contacted by one of the St Vincent’s fundraising entities, which include:

• St Vincent’s Curran Foundation
• Garvan Research Foundation
• St Vincent’s Foundation, Victoria
• St Vincent’s Foundation, Queensland

Where you have provided consent to contact from one of those fundraising entities on the admission form by ticking the relevant box, we will disclose your contact information to them. They may contact you to seek your support or to ask you to participate in St Vincent’s fundraising activities.

Where you have provided consent to receiving fundraising contact, only your contact details will be made available to the representative of fundraising entity who will contact you. No information regarding your medical treatment or condition is disclosed by us to them. Representatives from those fundraising entities will inform you who they are, why they are calling and that the contact relates to fundraising for St Vincent’s. Other contact may occur by physical mail to the home or business address you provide to us.

Should you wish to opt out of fundraising contact at any time, you can contact the relevant St Vincent’s fundraising entity or use the opt out mechanism provided on their respective websites.

8.1 How information is collected via websites

St Vincent’s only collects personal information through our entities’ websites if you choose to provide it. For example, if you complete your pre-admission form online, submit a general enquiry through one of our websites, register for access to an online portal or register for an event or request information.

When you access any of our websites, we keep a record of your visit through logging IP addresses (your computer’s address) to analyse trends, administer the website, track users’ movements and gather broad demographical information.

8.2 Cookies

St Vincent’s uses cookies, which is a small data file that is stored on your browser or device and allows our computer server to identify your computer or device. This allows content on our websites to load and function as intended when you access them and to monitor statistics on the use of our websites. The cookies identify your Internet service provider and browser type.

8.3 Third party tracking pixels 

St Vincent’s also uses third party tracking pixels that personalise advertising based on users’ engagement with our websites.

8.4 How you can manage data collection

You can manage or disable cookies at any time by accessing your browser settings and clearing your browser data, or by adjusting your cookie preferences in your browser's privacy settings. Your privacy is important to us and all data collected via these measures complies with applicable privacy laws.

Although you don't need to provide us with personal information to use our websites, we may be unable to tailor our website contents to your preferences, which means your experience of our websites may not be otherwise as enjoyable or useful. If you do not wish to use our online e-Admissions portal, you may request hard copy admissions forms. All personally identifiable information collected when using our websites will be managed in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

Where St Vincent’s uses a third party to process information submitted via webforms the data collected is stored in Australia with encryption at rest and in transit. All data collected through those webforms remain the exclusive property of St Vincent’s and is inaccessible to third parties except when explicitly authorised by us.

8.5 Links to third party sites

Our websites may contain links to external sites that are not operated by St Vincent’s. Such links are provided for your convenience and information purposes and this Privacy Policy does not apply to those websites. The inclusion of a link to a third party website does not imply any endorsement by St Vincent’s of the content, products or services offered by that site.

9.1 Data quality

St Vincent’s will take reasonable steps to ensure that your personal information which is collected, used or disclosed is accurate, complete and up to date.

9.2 Storage

All your personal information held by St Vincent’s is stored securely in either hard copy or electronic form and for the periods set out in any applicable St Vincent’s Data Retention and Disposal Policy. St Vincent’s may destroy personal information in a secure manner or take steps to de-identify personal information it holds when it is no longer needed and when it is lawfully authorised or required to do so.

9.3 Data security

St Vincent’s strives to ensure the security, integrity and privacy of personal information, and takes reasonable steps to protect your personal information from misuse, interference, loss, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. St Vincent’s uses technical and operational measures to keep your personal information secure including:

• Regular reviews and updates of technical platforms
• Controlling access to systems which store and process personal information
• Requiring employees to complete information security training
• Conducting regular internal and external reviews to assess our implementation of data security measures

• Providing encryption tools for employees and accredited health practitioners to use when sending personal information by email.

Where St Vincent’s has data storage arrangements with third party providers, our agreements with those providers require them to have information security protections that comply with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and other relevant Commonwealth and State laws.

9.4 Online transfer of information

While St Vincent’s does all it can to protect the privacy of your personal information, no data transfer over the internet is completely secure. When you share your personal information with St Vincent’s via an online process, it is at your own risk.

The Notifiable Data Breach scheme requires St Vincent’s to notify particular individuals and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner about eligible data breaches.

A data breach is eligible for notification if it is likely to result in serious harm to any of the individuals to whom the information relates and the likely risk of harm is unable to be prevented with remedial action.

There are additional mandatory data breach notification obligations under the My Health Records Act 2012 (Cth).

If you notify St Vincent’s about a data breach then we will not disclose personal information about you provided to us via that notification unless you agree, or would reasonably expect St Vincent’s to do so. 

You have the right to ask for access to personal information (including your sensitive and health information) that St Vincent’s holds about you and to ask that it is corrected where you believe that it is incorrect, incomplete or inaccurate.

Upon a request for access or correction being made, St Vincent’s will ask you to verify your identity before it gives you access to your information or the ability to correct it. We aim to make the process as simple as possible. If St Vincent’s refuses your access or correction request under the Australian Privacy Principles, or other relevant State law, we will notify you in writing setting out the reasons for doing so.

If St Vincent’s refuses to correct your personal information we will permit you to make a statement of the requested correction and we will enclose this with your personal information held by us.

St Vincent’s may charge you a reasonable amount to cover our administrative and other reasonable costs in providing the information to you. We will not charge for making the request and we will not charge for making any corrections to your personal information.

If you wish to make such a request, or for more information about accessing your health records and personal information, please contact the relevant service below:

St Vincent's Private Hospitals
Collection Notice information
Request for Information Procedure
Hospital Request for Information Form

St Vincent's Health Network Sydney
SVHS Privacy page
Privacy Officer
St Vincent's Health Network
390 Victoria St
Darlinghurst NSW 2010
T: (02) 8382 1111
E: SVHS.Feedback@svha.org.au

St Vincent's Hospital Melbourne
SVHM privacy page
Freedom of Information Officer 
Legal Office, St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne
PO Box 2900
Fitzroy VIC 3065
T: (03) 9231 2775
E: foi.svhm@svha.org.au

St Vincent's Care Services
Privacy Officer
St Vincent's Care Services
PO Box 555 
Spring Hill Qld 4000
svcs.info@svha.org.au

Virtual and Home
National Director
St Vincent's at Home and St Vincent's Virtual
Level 22, 100 William St 
Woolloomooloo NSW 2011
SVVH.Feedback@svha.org.au 

St Vincent's Clinic and Open Support
Privacy Officer
L4, 438 Victoria Street
Darlinghurst NSW 2010
Tel: (02) 8382 6405
stvincentsclinic@svha.org.au
info@opensupport.org.au

St Vincent's corporate office
National Privacy Officer
St Vincent’s Health Australia
Level 22, 100 William Street
Woolloomooloo NSW 2011
Tel: (02) 9367 1100
Fax: (02) 9367 1199
E: YourPrivacy@svha.org.au 

If you wish to complain that your privacy has been breached by us in a manner inconsistent with this Privacy Policy, please contact the local person in charge and/or the Privacy Officer using the contact details set out in the “How can you contact us?” section.

St Vincent’s takes any suspected breach of privacy very seriously. We request that complaints are made in writing to ensure we have the necessary details so that we can determine what (if any) action should be taken to resolve the complaint.

We will respond as soon as possible and in any event within 30 days of receiving your written complaint. We will let you know whether we will conduct an investigation and if applicable, the details of the investigating officer and estimated time frame.

We will contact you in writing to advise the outcome of your complaint and invite a response to our conclusions. If we receive a response from you, we will assess it and advise you in writing if we have changed our view.

If you are dissatisfied with the outcome of your complaint or the way in which the complaint was handled, you may contact the Privacy Commissioner:

• Online: visit www.oaic.gov.au to use the privacy complaint form
• Via postal mail: GPO Box 5288 Sydney NSW 2000
• Via fax: +61 2 6123 5145

If you would like to make an enquiry about St Vincent’s information handling practices or consider we have breached your privacy, please contact your local facility or Privacy Officer as follows:

St Vincent's Private Hospitals:

St Vincent's Private Hospital Northside and St Vincent's Private Hospital Brisbane
The Privacy Officer
Health Information Services 
627 Rode Road
Chermside QLD 4032
T: (07) 3326 3656
F: (07) 3326 3535
E: SVPHN.Privacy@svha.org.au

Mater Hospital, North Sydney
The Privacy Officer
Health Information Services 
PO Box 958
North Sydney NSW 2059
T: (02) 9900 7714
F: (02) 9957 7756
E: Mater.MedicalRecords@svha.org.au

St Vincent's Private Hospital Melbourne
The Privacy Officer
Health Information Services
75 Victoria Parade
Fitzroy VIC 3065
T: (03) 9411 7695
F: (03) 9231 6852
E: HIS.General@svha.org.au

St Vincent's Private Hospital Sydney and St Vincent's Private Hospital Griffith
The Privacy Officer
Health Information Services 
406 Victoria Street
Darlinghurst NSW 2010
T: (02) 8382 7468
F: (02) 8382 7275
E: SVPHS.MedicalRecords@svha.org.au

St Vincent's Private Hospital Toowoomba
The Privacy Officer
Health Information Services
22-36 Scott Street
Toowoomba QLD 4350
T: (07) 4690 4000
F: (07) 4690 4289
E: TOHIS@svha.org.au  

St Vincent's Health Network Sydney
Privacy Officer
St Vincent's Health Network
390 Victoria St
Darlinghurst NSW 2010
T: (02) 8382 1111
E: SVHS.Feedback@svha.org.au

St Vincent's Hospital Melbourne
Freedom of Information Officer 
Legal Office, St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne
PO Box 2900
Fitzroy VIC 3065
T: (03) 9231 2775
E: foi.svhm@svha.org.au

St Vincent's Care Services
Privacy Officer
St Vincent's Care Services
PO Box 555 
Spring Hill Qld 4000
E: svcs.info@svha.org.au

Virtual and Home
National Director
St Vincent's at Home and St Vincent's Virtual
Level 22, 100 William St 
Woolloomooloo NSW 2011
E: SVVH.Feedback@svha.org.au 

St Vincent's Clinic and Open Support
Privacy Officer
L4, 438 Victoria Street
Darlinghurst NSW 2010
T: (02) 8382 6405
E: stvincentsclinic@svha.org.au
E: info@opensupport.org.au

St Vincent's Corporate Office
National Privacy Officer
St Vincent’s Health Australia
Level 22, 100 William Street
Woolloomooloo NSW 2011
T: (02) 9367 1100
F: (02) 9367 1199
E: YourPrivacy@svha.org.au 

St Vincent’s will update this Privacy Policy from time to time to take into account new laws and technology, changes to our operations and practices and the changing health care environment. Revised versions will be posted here. If material changes are made to this Policy, we may notify you by other means for example, by placing a notice on our website. 

This Privacy Policy is available for you to download and print or you may ask for a copy from any one of our service locations.

This privacy policy is effective as of November 2025.

The key St Vincent’s operating entities to which this Privacy Policy applies are:

St Vincent's Health Australia Ltd
St Vincent's Care Services Ltd
St Vincent’s Healthcare Ltd
St Vincent's Hospital (Melbourne) Limited
St Vincent's Private Hospitals Ltd
The Congregation of the Religious Sisters of Charity of Australia trading as St Vincent’s Private Hospital Sydney
St Vincent’s Community Health Ltd
St Vincent's Hospital Sydney Limited
St Vincent's Clinic

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