Ransomware attack hits staff at Hôtel-Dieu Grace Healthcare

About 1,400 employees at Hôtel-Dieu Grace Healthcare are impacted by the ransomware attack.

The five hospitals along with TransForm Shared Service Organization released another update about the attack Thursday afternoon.

The update confirmed the theft of an employee database report containing information for individuals employed by Hotel-Dieu as of November 4, 2022.

The statement says some former employees are also affected.

It's believed data taken includes names, social insurance number, and basic pay rate but no banking information was stolen.

The database report does not appear to include professional staff or volunteers.

At Bluewater Health in Sarnia, the hospital has confirmed the theft of a database report containing information about 267,000 patients dating from 1992.

The statement says Bluewater Health has determined that the report included information about every patient seen at at the hospital or predecessor institutions since February 24, 1992. 

The report may have included names, addresses, contact information, date of birth, basic demographic information, reason for visit and general notes on prior registrations.

Bluewater Health says social insurance number was also included for approximately 20,000 patients.

The statement says the hospital is notifying all patients whose SIN was included in the database report, and the hospital will provide those patients with two years of complimentary credit monitoring.  

There are no further updates for Erie Shores HealthCare, Windsor Regional Hospital and Chatham-Kent Health Alliance.

On Wednesday, it was announced the hospitals networks would be rebuilt from scratch.

The ransomware attack started on Monday October 23 and was originally called a "service interruption."  

It was later described as a "cyber attack."