Pharmacists guilty of professional misconduct.

Four B.C. pharmacists have been caught accessing people's medical records, without a valid medical reason. The B.C. College of Pharmacists has fined four of its members $6500 each, for repeatedly looking up patient profiles on Pharmanet for reasons not related to health care.

Danielle Chung, Albert Dubois, Sandford Leung and Stephen Mar were all found guilty of professional misconduct.

PharmaNet is the provincial database for prescriptions. It's used by pharmacists and emergency room doctors.

It contains pertinent medical information, and a lot of other personal information about patients. It's accessed each time someone gets a prescription filled, or is admitted to a hospital emergency room.

It's supposed to be confidential. But when patients started to complain last year, the College began to audit pharmacies.

But there are more than 700 drug stores in B.C., and the College can look at about 10% of them each year.

Now, the confidentiality of Pharmanet is about to get even tested even further. There are plans to expand access to all B.C. doctors.