CYBER INFECTION STILL NOT CURED
Speaking in the Legislative Council this week, Western Victoria Region MP Bev McArthur drew attention to the continued consequences this month’s cyber-attack is having on hospitals and medical care in South West Victoria.
She stressed the Government cannot simply ride out the bad headlines, and think the issue has gone away, noting “I have been assured by one of these health facilities that all emails have been lost and that there is no email contact available at health services. Staff are moving from one ward to another, one office to another, with handwritten notes. All orders for bandaids and bandages have to be done manually – you cannot do it online in any way, shape or form.”
She added “You have got healthcare workers in facilities that are manually walking from one place to another in the hospital to provide handwritten notes to other staff or using their own mobile phone systems to send messages and information about patients.”
Mrs McArthur also pointed out that the issue would not simply disappear when systems get back on line, highlighting the backlog of work being generated by the ongoing failure: “All records are being recorded manually, and all patient records will need to be uploaded at some point. What provision is going to be made for these facilities to manually reload all this data an information.” ““What financial support will they get? Because it will be a massive task.”
Speaking afterwards, she said: “It’s incredibly complacent of the Government to think that because the first days of headlines have passed, the problem is over. Hospitals will require funding not just to undo the damage the attack has done, but to put in place new and effective security systems which will prevent attacks in future.”
“What makes it worse is that this was an avoidable disaster. We need a thorough enquiry into how Ministers failed to heed the warnings of the Victorian Auditor General, in his report on Security of Patients’ Hospital Data, in May this year. What is the point of the Auditor-General recommending safety in this area and the government doing nothing about it? What has she done since May?”
“The attack on Cabrini Hospital in February should have made this an even higher priority.”
Mrs McArthur added a further concerning story: “A Colac cancer patient was told by her physician that had she been in the hospital at the time of the cyber attack she would have died. She was fortunate that she was there two weeks previous to that.” “Cases like this cannot be allowed to happen again – what is the Government doing to ensure lessons are learnt, and when will they provide the resources necessary to prevent another catastrophic failure.”
18 October 2019