SAN DIEGO (KGTV) - A weekend cyberattack continues to cause significant disruptions for patients and staff across the Scripps Health network.
ABC 10News spoke to a young mom battling breast cancer. She doesn't want to make her diagnosis public, so we are not revealing her name, but the thirty-nine-year-old is worried about missing treatments.
"Cancer treatment is life-changing for me, and every day that I miss my radiation sessions that increases my recurrence of the cancer coming back, and to me, that is pretty alarming," she said.
The woman said her radiation sessions were canceled Monday and Tuesday, and the rest of the week is unknown.
"I'm a young mom of two, and my hope is that I live as long as possible, and I've taken my treatments so seriously. I've done everything they have told me to do, but to sit here and wait and hope that it works out has been really tough," she said.
Becky Forbes also had an appointment canceled Tuesday that involves her treatment for MS. Forbes said she worked in IT for many years, and she's hoping patient financial information wasn't compromised.
"I would hate for someone to get a hold of my credit card information or social security number," said Forbes.
The Scripps patient portal App was still down Tuesday with no indication of when systems would be back online.
Tuesday, Scripps Health did not release any new information about the cyberattack. Instead, a spokesman referred ABC 10News to the following statement that was released Monday.
"As Scripps Health continues to address the cyberattack from this past weekend, our facilities remain open for patient care, including our hospitals, emergency departments, urgent care centers, Scripps HealthExpress locations and other outpatient facilities. Our technical teams and vendor partners are working tirelessly to resolve issues related to the cyberattack as quickly as possible.
As a result of the attack, we need to reschedule some patients' appointments and are reaching out to them to do so. Patients who have appointments scheduled during the next several days and are unsure about their status may call 1-800-SCRIPPS for more information.
Our patients' health and safety remain our top priorities and we are making every effort to ensure they continue to receive needed care in the most efficient and clinically appropriate way possible."
For the mom battling cancer, the lack of information is unsettling.
"What I'm asking Scripps leadership is to be more transparent, start to think about the patients who are getting life-changing treatments, and to helps us ease our worries," the woman said.
Patient questions are also being answered on the Scripps Health Facebook page.
When asked about when operations might be back online, Scripps responded by saying, "We are actively working to restore our systems as soon as it is safe. We are working with the top global experts in the field of cybersecurity as well as local and federal governments. Systems will be restored as soon as possible."
