The attack on Eastern Health, which operates sites including Box Hill and Maroondah hospitals, forced the organisation to shut down many of its IT systems as a precaution.Staff have reverted to using pen and paper for some patient management and have been forced to communicate through mobile phone app WhatsApp, sparking warnings about not sharing sensitive ­patient data over the service.An internal staff memo has revealed it is still not known how many devices have been affected by the attack.But management is working on the assumption every Eastern Health device that has been in contact with the internal IT system has been infected.Staff have been ordered not to connect Eastern Health devices to the Wi-Fi or internet.An Eastern Health spokeswoman confirmed the ongoing system shutdown.“Eastern Health continues to manage the impacts of a significant cyber incident experienced last week,” she said.“While a number of our IT systems remain offline, our business continuity plans have been enacted and we continue to make inroads in to our planned recovery.”Hospital management has resisted calls to redirect emergencies to other networks.The cyber attack forced all elective surgeries to be postponed. However, COVID vaccinations for prioritised staff continued across all Eastern Health sites.A second staff clinic, at ­Maroondah Hospital, opened on Monday with Angliss Hospital on track to begin later in the week.The attack followed warnings Victoria’s public health system was highly vulnerable to cyberattacks.



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