Ross Memorial hit by suspected cyber-attack

LINDSAY, Ont. – Ross Memorial Hospital declared a Code Grey at 10:53 p.m. on Sunday, February 5 due to a suspected cybersecurity incident. The hospital has retained third-party cybersecurity resources to work with its technical experts to investigate the incident according to industry best practices.

At most hospitals in Ontario, a Code Grey is activated if there is an outage of utilities, such as power or telecommunications, that results in the loss of hospital facilities.

According to a release posted on the hospital website, “In the meantime, as high-quality patient care is our priority, we are managing our established protocols to maintain continued delivery of our critical hospital services. Our systems restoration plan is also ongoing, and we are communicating with our local, regional, and provincial partners regarding next steps.”

“We will provide updates on our website at www.rmh.org, and via the hospital’s social media channels.”

Patients with less urgent conditions were being encouraged to consider alternate options for care such as their primary healthcare provider, pharmacist, after-hours clinic, virtual care, or by calling Telehealth Ontario at 1-866-797-0007. After-hours clinics can often treat non-urgent and minor illnesses and ailments, such as earaches, sore throats or prescription refills.