A heart patient told last night how his long-awaited operation was cancelled because of the cyber attack as he waited to go into the operating theatre.
Patrick Ward, 47, had travelled with his family from his home in Steeple, Dorset, to St Bartholomew’s Hospital in Central London for open heart surgery.
He was due to have a septal myectomy, for which he had been waiting ten months.
The surgery involves removing part of the septum – a wall of tissue that separates part of the heart – which is obstructing the flow of blood.
After having his arms and chest shaved and a cannula inserted into the back of his hand, he was ready to go into theatre when his surgeon told him they had to cancel the operation.
‘I was told at about 1.30 that there had been a cyber hack and we couldn’t proceed today,’ he said. ‘Apparently if I needed a blood transfusion during the procedure they would need to access files on their database, which they can no longer do.
‘They can’t tell me when the next available slot is to reschedule, so we’ll stay at a hotel in London tonight and head back to Dorset tomorrow.’
Mr Ward, a sales director for an ice cream company, said: ‘It’s a specialist operation so it could be a while before I get another appointment. What I have isn’t life-threatening but it has impacted my life a lot. It’s very restricting.
‘I think this is one of the few hospitals that can do it, and they only do it on certain days which is why I’ve had to wait so long to get a date set. It prevents me from doing exercise and I get pains when I walk. I was hoping to be able to play football again after the operation.
‘I was supposed to spend a week in hospital recovering. My daughter travelled from Liverpool today to spend the weekend with me.’
Emma Simpson took her son, Sebastian, to Whipps Cross University Hospital in Leytonstone, East London, for an X-ray on his broken toe but was sent home because of the cyber attack.
They had an appointment with an orthopaedic clinic to check that the toe was healing properly.
But when they arrived they were greeted by ‘chaos’ and told that computers would be down until ‘at least Monday’.
‘They sent us away and said they would call us with a new appointment,’ she told ITV London. ‘Lots of people were very disappointed.’
A woman with a suspected blood clot was turned away from the Lister Hospital in Stevenage, Hertfordshire.
Janetts Douras originally went to the A&E department on Thursday with the suspected clot but was sent home after six hours and told to return yesterday for a CT scan.
But after an hour she was sent away again with medication that she must inject herself to thin her blood.
She was asked to come back on Monday but said: ‘I can’t see it happening.’