10,000 patients have appointments or procedures cancelled in Mid-West following IT hack

Record numbers have been attending the Emergency Department at University Hospital Limerick over the last week and less urgent patients are being advised to expect delays. Picture: Dan Linehan

Up to 10,000 scheduled patient appointments and medical procedures have been cancelled in the Mid-West region following the devastating cyber attack of the HSE’s  IT systems.

The UL Hospitals Group has warned widespread service disruption will continue into a fourth week due to the impact of the hack.

In a statement, the group said while it is working hard with local and national teams to restore IT systems, those systems are being restored based on clinical priority and progress will be gradual.

To date, approximately 10,000 patients have had scheduled appointments or procedures cancelled and outpatient appointments and elective surgeries remain cancelled until further notice.

Record numbers have been attending the Emergency Department (ED) at University Hospital Limerick (UHL) over the last week and less urgent patients are being advised to expect delays and to consider alternative options to access healthcare before attending ED.

Service disruptions continue in UHL; University Maternity Hospital, Limerick; Ennis Hospital; Nenagh Hospital; St John’s Hospital, and Croom Orthopaedic Hospital.

The group has reiterated all outpatient clinics are cancelled. This includes paediatric outpatient appointments, apart from time-critical patients who will be called directly by the hospital in advance.

All elective inpatient and day case procedures are cancelled; this is with the exception of time-critical cases and these patients will be called directly in advance.

All diagnostics including X-ray, CT scans, MRI appointments, endoscopy services, and cardiac investigations are postponed.

Maternity services including ante-natal clinic, dialysis treatment, cancer day ward with chemotherapy and radiotherapy, Acute Fracture Unit (UHL), and vaccinations in the mass vaccination centres are continuing.

Dr Joe Kelly, Consultant in Emergency Medicine, UL Hospitals’ Group, admitted staff are continuing to struggle with the after-effects of the cyber attack and he said "ongoing issues around accessibility and stability of our IT systems have slowed down our processes in the department".

“This is resulting in delays at almost every step of the patient journey, from registration to seeing a nurse or a doctor; from getting an X-ray done to the results of a blood test becoming available.

“We have set up workarounds to keep our patients safe but our work has slowed down considerably," Dr Kelly said. 

We expect to be suffering the effects of this hack for a number of weeks to come.

“It is vital that people who do need the ED continue to come such as suspected heart attacks, strokes, other serious illnesses or accidents. 

"People with less serious injury or illness can expect to experience delays and we would ask them to consider the alternatives to ED where that is appropriate,” Dr Kelly said.