Box Hill Hospital patient ‘frustrated’ as effects of cyber attack stretch into second week

A “cyber incident” which forced several hospitals in Melbourne’s east offline is continuing to cause disruptions.

Eastern Health, which operates Box Hill, Maroondah and Healesville hospitals, was targeted on March 18, and its IT systems were shut down.

In a statement last Friday, the health provider said some IT systems were still offline, and others were recommencing with a staged approach.

Category one surgeries have not been disrupted, but many other elective surgeries have been cancelled.

Box Hill Hospital patient, Jess, who is 38-weeks pregnant, said it’s “getting frustrating”.

“Each time you attend an appointment you have to verbally go over your history,” she told Neil Mitchell.

“There’s no notes they can access.

“It does beg the question whether when someone forgets to mention something quite serious one day, whether it’ll have adverse effects.

“Pre-COVID you used to get everything written down in your hospital book, but when COVID hit they changed all that so it was all on the system, and now with the system gone there’s no notes anywhere.”

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