Police are now conducting a criminal investigation into the cyberattack that has caused a system outage at several southwestern Ontario hospitals, including the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance.
In a joint statement issued by Bluewater Health, the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance, Erie Shores HealthCare, Hôtel-Dieu Grace Healthcare, Windsor Regional Hospital, and service provider TransForm Shared Service Organization, the hospitals said they have notified and engaged police to investigate.
Hospital officials announced a regional system outage on Monday and determined it was the result of a cyberattack.
Third-party cybersecurity experts are assisting as the hospitals and the service provider continue to work round the clock to restore systems.
“The hospitals will continue to do their best to contact patients directly in advance if they have a scheduled appointment with one of our hospitals that needs to be rescheduled,” the hospitals said in their statement. “If you are not needing emergency care, we ask that you please attend your primary care provider or local clinic.”
Hospital officials said they will not be commenting further on the cybersecurity issue but further updates related to the restoration of their systems are expected next week.
