A possible hack has affected the ‘brain’ of Newfoundland’s health-care system, causing thousands of appointments to be postponed

A cyberattack appears to be to blame for a healthcare service outage in Newfoundland and Labrador that has impacted thousands of appointments and procedures, including COVID-19 testing.

At a news conference Monday morning, Health Minister John Haggie said, “We may have been victims of a probable cyber attack by a third party.”

According to Haggie, the alleged attack struck “the brain of the data centre” that drives the province’s healthcare system early Saturday morning.

“We have a broken system,” he explained.

According to CBC News, the attack was caused by ransomware, but Haggie says he can’t confirm it just yet.

“We’re still looking into the nature and scope of it,” he told reporters.

One thing is certain: the weekend’s events have wreaked havoc on the healthcare system, particularly at Eastern Health, the province’s largest of the four health authorities, where practically all procedures have been cancelled except for emergency procedures.

“It’s been a rough few days,” Eastern Health CEO David Diamond said.

The health authority has been impacted in a variety of ways, including the inability to register new patients and the failure of the entire email system.