Tag Archive for: hospitals

Nigerian govt indicts hospital’s Chief Medical Director for job racketeering

/in


An investigative panel set up by the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare on Sunday revealed why some health workers at the Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital (OAUTH), Ile-Ife, Osun State, have been unpaid for months.

The investigative panel led by Aderemi Azeez found that the former Acting Chief Medical Director of the hospital, Afolabi Owojuyigbe, carried out over-employment in the hospital, without provision in the personnel budget. Mr Owojuyigbe and his accomplices are also culpable of job racketeering, according to the panel.

The ministry confirmed the development in a statement signed by its Director of Press, Patricia Deworitshe, noting that the government waded into the matter to set the record straight.

According to the statement, the panel disclosed that Mr Owojuyigbe, a Consultant Anaesthetist, employed over 1,973 staff as against the waiver for 450 vacancies granted to the hospital in the 2022 employment process by the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation.

FIRS

Protests

There were reports that some health workers accused the management of OAUTH of subjecting them to penury over unpaid salaries for 10 months.

The accusers lamented that they resorted to begging to feed their families “due to the hardship the non-payment of their salaries subjected them to.”

Many had also accused the hospital management of commercialising the job opportunities by allegedly selling the slots for as high as N500,000.

In response to the allegations, the Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Muhammad Pate, on his verified X handle @muhammadpate on 13 October, confirmed that an investigation had been completed on the matter.

“We are addressing the OAUTH situation. The investigation has just been completed on this unfortunate situation. We understand the difficulties being faced by numerous innocent health workers and will do our best to resolve it equitably,” the minister posted at the time.

Findings

In a statement on Sunday by the ministry, which is titled, ‘OAUTH Ife and the Unrest,’ it noted that the unrest was attributed to the alleged job racketeering, and over-employment saga under Mr Owojuyigbe.

The statement termed the…

Source…

Hospitals hit by ransomware attack break down impact on operations, patients

/in


Five Southwestern Ontario hospitals were hit by a ransomware attack on Oct. 23, 2023. (CBC/Erie Shores Healthcare Facebook - image credit)

Five Southwestern Ontario hospitals were hit by a ransomware attack on Oct. 23, 2023. (CBC/Erie Shores Healthcare Facebook – image credit)

For the first time, top leadership from the five hospitals in southwestern Ontario hit by a ransomware attack answered questions from the media — acknowledging the significant impact the incident has had on care, as well as the large amount of data that has been stolen.

During the roughly 50-minute meeting on Friday, each hospital CEO said their facility has been hard hit by the Oct. 23 attack, but that recovery is ongoing and they’re getting by with the hard work of staff. With systems down and hospitals unable to access critical information, thousands of patient appointments have been cancelled across the five hospitals, creating backlogs of varying lengths at some of the facilities.

Some of the institutions also said that they have started reaching out to the thousands of patients and staff whose information has been leaked onto the dark web. The hospitals are providing those impacted with a free credit monitoring service.

The hospital CEOs also stood behind IT provider TransForm, saying that they are “confident” the group is working hard to get systems back online, with a priority on clinical services.

“We apologize for this. And we apologize for the inconvenience this has had and the issues this has caused for the patients in our community,” said Windsor Regional Hospital CEO David Musyj.

“But I can tell you individually and collectively, our focus is on them and our focus is on our staff to regain that trust.”

Here are the latest updates each hospital shared.

Bluewater Health 

Bluewater Health in Sarnia says without access to its systems, “there has been an impact on our families and patient experience.”

CEO Paula Reaume-Zimmer says urgent and emergency cases have been prioritized and as a result, their diagnostic imaging department has had to cancel more than 3,500 appointments, causing a “significant and growing backlog.”

She also says labs in the Sarnia and Petrolia regions are deferring walk-in, non-urgent cases to deal with emergent ones.

She says staff have been notifying patients of changes to their…

Source…

Ransomware attack fallout continues at several CT hospitals

/in


Some services remain down at Eastern Connecticut Health Network and Waterbury Health on Tuesday, days after the hospital systems’ parent company reported being hit by a ransomware attack.

Eastern Connecticut Health Network, or ECHN, operates Manchester Memorial Hospital and Rockville General Hospital in Vernon. Waterbury Health operates Waterbury Hospital. Both are owned by Prospect Medical Holdings, a California-based company that also owns hospitals there as well as in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island. 

The company said Tuesday there were no updates and did not answer questions regarding when services and locations that have closed will be back up and running or if confidential information was exposed in the attack.

Advertisement

Article continues below this ad

ECHN’s website as of Tuesday still displayed a banner stating it “along with all Prospect Medical facilities, is experiencing a systemwide outage.”

“We are working to resolve the issue as soon as possible and regret any inconvenience,” the banner stated. It included a link to a page listing which services and locations were closed. 

As of Tuesday, the page said Evergreen and Tolland Imaging, outpatient blood drawing, urgent care and its Women’s Center are closed, along with outpatient medical imaging on weekdays. 

Waterbury Health’s Facebook page also listed several locations or services that were shut down due to the “data security incident.’ 

Advertisement

Article continues below this ad

“We are following downtime procedures including the use of paper records. The outage has affected some of our outpatient services, mostly diagnostic imaging and blood draw and some patient appointments,” the organization said in a post on Tuesday. “We have contacted and will continue to contact any affected patients.”

The post said Waterbury Health’s blood draw locations are closed, except for an outpatient blood drawing location at Waterbury Hospital.

Women’s Imaging and Open MRI in Southbury are both closed, as is Diagnostic Radiology Associates, which has locations in Waterbury, Middlebury and Southbury.

Advertisement

Article continues below this ad

The phrase refers to a type of cyber security breach where adversaries plant malware or break…

Source…

Cyber security expert weighs in on cyber attacks targeting hospitals – ABC 6 News

/in


Across the country, hackers are launching cyber-attacks against medical facilities.

This week, a cyber-attack hit Prospect Medical Holdings, a company with hospitals and clinics in multiple states.

It disrupted computer systems, forcing emergency rooms to shut down, and ambulances to be diverted.

And it’s part of a growing trend — the FBI says the average cost of a healthcare data breach reached nearly $11 million in 2023, a more than 50% increase since 2020.

Sai Huda, a cyber security expert joins ABC 6 weekend anchor Mayzie Olson to discuss the issue.

Source…