Patients’ personal information at five Ontario hospitals is at risk after a cyberattack forced the postponement of many appointments, including for patients undergoing cancer treatment.
Non-profit Transform, which manages IT services at five Windsor-area hospitals, confirmed Tuesday that a computer attack carried out last week put patients at risk.
“We discovered during our investigation that unfortunately the personal information of some patients, staff and professionals was stolen. “It is possible that the actors responsible for this attack will publish some of the stolen data,” complains Transform in a press release.
Consequences in oncology
The computer attack, launched on October 23, partially disabled the computer systems of Bluewater Health, Chatham-Kent Health Alliance, Erie Shores HealthCare, Hôtel-Dieu Grace Healthcare and Windsor Regional Hospital. This attack particularly caused headaches during patient appointments, with several patients having to be rescheduled.
Windsor Regional Hospital confirmed Tuesday, along with Transform’s release, that it is having difficulty resuming treatment for its cancer patients. A week after the cyber attack, specialists are still working on a solution to enable the devices to be used in radiation therapy.
In the meantime, the hospital is trying to find other hospitals that can accept its radiation therapy patients. Some of the patients who received chemotherapy also had to go to other hospitals.
Hospital managers emphasized that patients forced to move to other hospitals will receive financial support.