REGINA - Gary Dickson has seen abandoned medical records turn up in some pretty bizarre places in his time as Saskatchewan's privacy commissioner -- mouldy basements, drafty Quonset huts, vacant buildings.

He argues that more needs to be done to protect sensitive, personal health information left behind when a doctor retires or dies. Increasingly across Canada, he says, no appropriate arrangements have been made to turn records over to another doctor or to an approved archive.

He recalls one case in which a woman who was a doctor's trustee had piles of files in her basement.

"When somebody wanted access they could phone this individual ...and she'd arrange for her husband, who worked in a place that had a photocopier, to take the records to his place of work (and) photocopy the records."

The husband would then send them to the patient -- for a fee.

"There's all kinds of weird arrangements like that, that have been going on," Dickson says. "It's a significant problem."

When a doctor dies in Saskatchewan, the representative of the estate -- typically a widow or a child -- has the same obligations the doctor had when it comes to records. But that person may not know what that entails, especially when it comes to keeping files secure or allowing patients access.

"A trustee has to take responsible measures to safeguard information," says Dickson. "Generally that means records being locked away in a place that somebody else doesn't get access to, but there are lots of circumstances where records are stored. If it's in somebody's basement in their house, anybody in the house might have access to those records.

"That's not secure at all."

Even worse, Dickson says, are the records that are just abandoned. His office has had calls about thousands of abandoned medical documents in at least four different Saskatchewan communities over the last several years.

In one case, acting on an anonymous tip in March 2008, investigators found five boxes filled with more than 800 personal health records in a vacant building in Yorkton. In another case, the commissioner's office is paying rent on an office in Moose Jaw with "boxes and boxes of records" because no one can be found to take them.

A spokesman for the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Saskatchewan was not available to comment, but a college official said there are bylaws that address how doctors who stop practising should deal with records.

But the bylaws don't specifically state what should happen if a doctor dies, and there's no requirement for physicians to tell the college where the records are going to be.

"You can see why there's a need for quite a bit of clarification, clear rules."

The problem isn't unique to Saskatchewan. It has also frustrated Alberta's information and privacy commissioner.

"We've seen situations where a physician has retired or passed away, and the records have been left with his children, and patients have been trying to get access and have had a difficult time doing that," says LeRoy Brower, director of health information with the privacy commissioner's office.

"We've had other situations where records have been abandoned by a health-care provider and we have been called by the landlord.

"The landlord is questioning, 'What do I do with these health records? I don't think I should have them. I don't think I should see them, but I'm not sure what to do with them."'

Alberta has taken legislative action to tackle the problem.

The Health Professions Amendment Act puts the onus on professional colleges to deal with medical records. However, the legislation is not yet in force.

"What it does is sets out that a college has a responsibility to adopt standards of practise that place requirements on its regulated members about arrangements they must have in place to ensure that their records are not abandoned. That's the first step," says Brower.

"The second step is if in spite of that, one of the regulated members does abandon their records, then the college is given a responsibility to ensure that those abandoned records are secured and managed."

An official with the Saskatchewan Health Ministry says the province would consider changing existing legislation to ensure records are protected. The ministry is currently working with the college of physicians to find a better solution, says Jacqueline Messer-Lepage, the ministry's health information director.

"We're looking at all of the options right now because we also recognize that most trustees, their families ... may not have the insight necessary to handle these records," she says.

Dickson says some people believe part of the answer is electronic health records, but he adds it could be another decade before all information is in digital form. The issue needs to be dealt with now.

"People don't want to read stories about other people's patient files blowing around on windy street corners or being found in barns and mouldy basements," he says.

"This is the time we have to pay attention to building confidence in patients that the system is going to properly protect their personal information. If we do a crummy job protecting the privacy of patients now with paper records, is that not going to impair trust when it comes to electronic records?"