WRH moving some cancer care patients to other hospital following ransomware attack

Windsor Regional Hospital is working with other healthcare centers in Ontario to provide cancer care in the wake of a ransomware attack at the hospital.

According to a release posted to social media Tuesday, "Windsor Regional Hospital has been working with IT experts and radiation treatment platform providers on trying to implement a safe and reliable service to operate the radiation machines while we are addressing global IT issues caused by the cyberattack."

According to the release, the hospital is working with Ontario Health and other cancer centre organizations to transfer patients' current care and address any new referrals for radiation care.

Patients requiring chemotherapy and related services are being treated both within the hospital and plans are being made to access additional capacity in other centres.

The hospital says financial support is available for travel and accommodation costs.

The ransomware attack started Oct. 23 and was originally called a "service interruption." 

TransForm Shared Service Organization says Bluewater Health, Chatham-Kent Health Alliance, Erie Shores HealthCare, Hôtel-Dieu Grace Healthcare and Windsor Regional Hospital are victims ransomware attack.

The shared service organization says it continues to work around the clock to restore systems and hopes to have updates related to the restoration of its systems in the upcoming week.

Local police departments, Ontario Provincial Police, INTERPOL and FBI as well as regulatory organizations such as the Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner are taking part in the criminal investigation.

TransForm says it is also working with cybersecurity experts and determined certain patient, employee and professional staff data has been taken, and some of the stolen data may have been published by the attackers.

The organization says it will notify individuals whose data was affected by the cyber attack and understands the impact the attack is having on members of the community, including patients, employees and professional staff.

The company adds the hospitals are doing their best to contact patients in advance for a scheduled appointment that needs to be rescheduled.