Curiosity is an addiction, it seems. Despite warnings and refresher courses in patient privacy laws, nearly two dozen employees of Bellflower Hospital in Los Angeles have been fired or disciplined for snooping in the medical records of Nadya Suleman, the woman who gave birth to octuplets earlier this year. According to Kaiser Permanente, the employees who accessed the computer files "ran the gamut of medical staff".

There is no indication that hospital staff sold the information or passed it on to others. “You can only guess that this was human nature and curiosity that got the best of people," said a Kaiser Permanente spokesman.

This is not the first time that hospital employees In LA have invaded a celebrity patient's privacy. Last year UCLA Hospital fired a number of staff after they looked at the records of former starlet Farrah Fawcett and pop star Britney Spears. ~ Los Angeles Times, Mar 30