Harlan Ginsberg of Coral Springs was rushed to Margate’s Northwest Medical Center in 2006 after a kidney stone attack. During surgery to remove the stone, he says, a doctor mistakenly cut a tube that delivered urine to his bladder and removed a kidney that another doctor testified was healthy.

Relying on a voter-approved provision in Florida’s Constitution, Ginsberg’s medical malpractice attorney asked Northwest Medical to turn over its reports about other patients’ “adverse medical incidents” of the type Ginsberg claimed he suffered. The hospital initially refused. Later, it agreed to search its records — but only if Ginsberg coughed up $77,550 in advance.

Ginsberg refused to pay and didn’t get the records. In October, he lost his malpractice case in Broward Circuit Court against the 215-bed hospital and two of its doctors who treated him. Fort Lauderdale attorney Andrew Winston is considering whether to appeal.

“The hospital went to extraordinary lengths to prevent Mr. Ginsberg from obtaining the information he was entitled to under the Florida Constitution,” Winston said.

Seven years ago, Florida voters overwhelmingly approved a Constitutional amendment that gave patients who had been hospitalized the right to see reports dealing with botched medical procedures and poor care. While the amendment could be used to give patients vital information before a medical mistake is made, its practical and more much publicized purpose was to give aggrieved patients more power in court by opening up malpractice complaints and confidential internal reviews of doctors and hospitals.

The Patients’ Right to Know Act was hailed as a major victory for individuals seeking to know more about their hospitals and doctors. But it hasn’t always worked out that way.

Since the law’s inception, hospitals have thrown up roadblocks and legal challenges to block access to patient records. In response, patients across Florida are using the law to ask judges to pry open reports about medical errors.

In Ginsberg’s case, Northwest Medical’s attorneys produced to the court a 10-page affidavit from a hospital risk manager who called Ginsberg’s request “unduly burdensome.” A hospital lawyer said it would take the equivalent of at least 235 days just to research it. After months passed and the judge did not rule on the records request, Ginsberg’s lawyer withdrew it to expedite trial.

Northwest Medical is owned by the Hospital Corporation of America.

The Florida First Amendment Foundation is a private, nonpartisan and nonprofit organization that promotes the public’s constitutional right to oversee government through the state’s open government laws. Foundation President Barbara Petersen said the hospital’s hefty fee is “ridiculous — regardless of the affidavit — and amounts to an effective denial of access.”

“It is troubling that the hospitals would systematically deny records as required,” said state Rep. George Moraitis Jr., R-Fort Lauderdale.

While some hospitals comply with the law, others don’t, saying they have exclusive rights to the records or that their method of record-keeping does not fit their definition of documents required for release by the amendment. Broward Health, the county’s largest healthcare provider which operates Broward General Medical Center and other facilities, says it considers disclosure on a case by case basis.