SickKids hospital dealing with cybersecurity event, several networks affected

Toronto’s SickKids hospital is dealing with a cybersecurity incident affecting several network systems but says patients will continue to be treated.

A hospital spokesperson says it has called a “Code Grey” system failure, which went into effect at 9:30 p.m. on Sunday. SickKids says there is no evidence that personal or health information has been impacted.

The spokesperson says that the public may experience difficulties calling the hospital and accessing certain web pages such as AboutKidsHealth.ca (SickKids’ health information site) and the hospital’s careers application portal.

“Upon learning of this incident, we immediately activated the hospital’s incident management command centre and launched an investigation to determine the nature and scope of the incident,” SickKids hospital wrote in a news release.

“At this time, the incident appears to have only impacted a few internal clinical and corporate systems, as well as some hospital phone lines and webpages. Downtime procedures have been activated where needed.”

The Hospital for Sick Children notes that third-party experts are aware of the issue as it quickly aims to resolve the cybersecurity incident.

Ontario’s pediatric hospitals have been under massive strain recently as they deal with a surge in young patients with respiratory illnesses.

Since November, SickKids in Toronto has seen high patient volumes in its ICU and has reduced the number of surgeries so staff can be redeployed to provide care in that unit.

Families have been warned of long emergency department waits, surgeries have been cancelled to redeploy staff, and ICUs have been filled past capacity.

With files from The Canadian Press