Health Sciences North confirmed on Thursday that 24 Northeastern Ontario hospitals have been affected by a computer virus that started affecting hospital systems on Wednesday morning.

A few hours after HSN released their statement, the TADH Facebook page made a post confirming that the Timmins and District Hospital was also experiencing service interruptions:

Urgent Notice: TADH Service Interruptions
The Timmins and District Hospital is currently experiencing technical difficulties impacting services. If you have a scheduled appointment or are seeking medical attention please present understanding that it may be impacted. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Avis urgent: L’HTD interruptions de service 
Nous éprouvons des difficultés techniques qui dérangeront nos services. Si vous avez un rendez-vous, présentez-vous quand même, mais sachez qu’il pourrait y avoir un délai ou votre rendez-vous pourrait être remis.
Merci pour votre patience.

 

Health Sciences North says that 24 hospitals have been impacted by IT challenges caused by a zero day virus, meaning a virus that has no previous patches or solutions. Systems were put on downtime, successfully avoiding the spread of the virus. As a result, 21 of the 24 Northeastern Ontario hospitals have had their main electrical medical record system, Meditech, put on downtime. The electronic medical record system for cancer programs in 12 hospitals, Mosaiq, is also on downtime, and ten hospitals have their medical imaging system on downtime.

According to HSN, about 75% of their systems have been impacted by the downtime. Their media release states that HSN is working to start restoring critical systems on Friday and are re-scheduling cancelled chemotherapy and radiation treatments this weekend.

HSN adds that they have no evidence that patient information has been breached.

It’s unclear at this time how extensively TADH has been impacted by this, or when the situation will be resolved.

Filed under: Local News