Privacy Policy
Natural Health and Fertility Pty Ltd t/as The Natural Health and Fertility Centre (ABN 17 290 290 849) (we, us, our), is committed to protecting the privacy of your personal information. We are bound by the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act) and, in particular, by the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs), which set out the standards of collecting, holding, using and disclosing your personal information. This Privacy Policy explains the way in which we handle your personal information, and the ways in which you can contact us about the personal information that we hold about you.
What is personal information?
“Personal information” is information about an identified, or reasonably identifiable, individual. This includes your name, your date of birth and your contact details, and may also include sensitive details about your health and payment data.
Collecting your personal information
We provide natural health and fertility services in a supportive and caring environment, aimed to guide patients to optimum physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health, including through the use of clinical nutrition, herbal medicine and homeopathy. Our fertility services include fertility support, conception support, miscarriage support, ART/IVF support, and support during pregnancy, labour and breastfeeding. Naturally, we handle sensitive information in the course of providing these services, including name, date of birth, contact details (including home, business and email address, as well as telephone numbers), medical information, including medical and sexual history, medications, allergies, adverse events, immunisations, family history and risk factors; Medicare number; healthcare identifiers; and health fund details.
Other than the above information about the clients of aged care facilities, we also collect the following personal information:
- if you apply for employment with us, information relating to your application including your visa status and eligibility to work in Australia, and
- any other personal information that is reasonably necessary for the purpose of running our business.
Our purposes for handling personal information
We collect, hold, use and disclose personal information, for the following purposes:
- to provide you with the services you have engaged us to provide;
- to maintain our business records
- to stay in touch with you
- to assess any applications you make to us as a prospective employee, such as your current or previous employer
- for any purpose required or permitted by law
- for any purpose you would otherwise reasonably expect
- for any purpose disclosed to you and to which you have consented, and
- to otherwise run our business.
Disclosing your personal information
We treat your health records as sensitive, and in accordance with our obligations at law.
From time to time, we disclose your personal information to others involved in your health care, including doctors and specialists outside the Natural Health and Fertility Clinic, who may be involved in treating you, pathology services, radiology services and in emergency situations. This may occur through referral to other doctors or specialists, or for medical tests and in the reports or results returned to us following the referrals. This will always be in accordance with your consent.
Typically, we only transfer your personal information overseas with your consent. The country in which the recipient is located is therefore determined by your consent.
Security of your personal information
We hold your personal information in both paper-based and electronic files, in both cases stored securely. We seek to ensure that your personal information is protected from:
- misuse, interference and loss; and
- unauthorised access, modification and disclosure.
The personal information that we hold is treated as confidential and only accessed when necessary.
Accessing your personal information
You may request access to the personal information that we hold about you by contacting our Privacy Officer at [email protected]. If we refuse access to your personal information, we will provide you with a written notice which sets out the reasons for our refusal. We may recover our reasonable costs (if any) in responding to a request for access to your personal information.
Correcting your personal information
We seek to ensure that the personal information that we collect about you is accurate, up-to-date and complete and, in the case of our use of that information, relevant as well. To assist us with this, we encourage you to contact us if you believe that any information that we hold about you is inaccurate, out of date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading, and make a request that we correct your personal information accordingly. You may make such a request by contacting our Privacy Officer on [email protected].
Marketing
We may use your personal information to provide you with information about research, products and services which we think may be of interest to you. You may opt out of receiving marketing communications from us at any time if you no longer wish to receive this information. In order to do so, simply contact our Privacy Officer on [email protected] and request that we no longer send marketing communications to you or opt out in the way suggested in our communications, for example by clicking the Unsubscribe button.
Questions and complaints
If you have any questions, or if you believe that we have not complied with our obligations under the Privacy Act, or if you believe that the security of the personal information that we hold about you has been compromised in any way, please contact our Privacy Officer on [email protected]. We will respond as soon as possible. If you are dissatisfied with our response, you may direct your complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner by email at [email protected] or by telephone on 1300 363 992.
Changes to this Privacy Policy
We may make change to this Privacy Policy from time to time without prior notice to you. The current version of our Privacy Policy is available on our website. If you are not able to access the Privacy Policy online, please contact us if you would like us to send you a copy of the policy.