Pembroke Regional Hospital dealing with cybersecurity incident, cancelling some appointments and procedures

The Pembroke Regional Hospital is seen in this April 2024 image. (Dylan Dyson/CTV News Ottawa)

The Pembroke Regional Hospital has cancelled “certain appointments and procedures” following a cybersecurity incident earlier this week.

The hospital says it appears patient information has not been compromised, but the incident is causing service delays for staff and patients.

“We take privacy and security very seriously and maintaining the trust of our patients, our community and our health care team is of the utmost importance to us. Unfortunately, due to the rapidly evolving nature of cyber threats, it is not always possible to prevent against all forms of attacks,” Sabine Mersmann, president and CEO of the Pembroke Regional Hospital, said in a statement.

“Upon detection of this incident Tuesday morning, we rapidly initiated our incident response plan and deployed countermeasures to prevent further unauthorized access to our network, including taking systems offline.”

Officials say the hospital engage third-party cybersecurity experts to assist with “containment and remediation” following the cybersecurity incident, and to conduct a “forensic investigation to determine the cause and extent of the incident.”

Any patients affected by the cybersecurity incident will be contacted directly for appointment changes.