Some delays possible as local hospitals impacted by global IT outage

Some services in Waterloo region are feeling the string of a global IT outage affecting Mircosoft programs.

Grand River Hospital and St. Mary’s General Hospital have been impacted by the issue, but emergency services are still available.

Anyone who needs emergency help is encouraged to contact 911 or go to the nearest emergency department.

In an email to CTV News, the hospitals’ Integrated Director of Strategic Engagement Victoria Ott said most clinical services are still running, but there may be delays.

Meanwhile, the impacts of the outage at Guelph General Hospital are considered to be minimal. Officials said patient care has not been effected at this time.

Cambridge Memorial Hospital is seeing a similar level of minimal disruption. Representatives there said only one application was impacted and they were able to move to a redundant server with no changes to patient care.

The Brant Community Healthcare System confirms Brantford General Hospital and the Willett Urgent Care Centre in Paris, Ont. have also been impacted by the outage, but the system’s Vice President of Strategy, Quality, Risk and Communications Elena Lukich said both locations are open and fully operational as staff are working to restore some of their IT systems. Patients may experience minimal delays.

More information is expected as the situation develops.

Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike has said the issue is not related to a security incident or cyrberattack. The problems began when a faulty update was sent to computers running Microsoft Windows.