Medical and personal details of hundreds of thousands of patients of the Groene Hart hospital in Gouda were publicly available for years because of a badly protected computer, a hacker told news site Nu.nl at the weekend.

The details included x-ray photos, lists of medication, diagnoses and lab results, together with addresses, birth dates, telephone numbers and national insurance numbers. Around 493,000 patient files are involved.
The hospital says on its website it is ‘really shocked by the news’ and ‘this should never have happened’.
The computer in question was immediately removed from the hospital’s network and steps have been taken to ensure no one from outside can get into the system.
It is not yet clear if other outsiders have downloaded the information.