By Hannah Kaufman
Morning Sentinel
LEWISTON, Maine 鈥� Cyber incidents that shut down systems at two Lewiston hospitals in recent weeks caused ambulances to be diverted, leaving rescue chiefs and patients in limbo.
Rick Sieberg, Gardiner鈥檚 fire chief, said he was not aware of the cyber incidents until June 10, when a Morning Sentinel reporter asked him about them.
His department regularly transports patients to Lewiston, either to St. Mary鈥檚 Regional Medical Center or Central Maine Medical Center. St. Mary鈥檚, which is part of St. Mary鈥檚 Health System and owned by Covenant Health, reported a cyber incident in late May, and Central Maine Healthcare, which runs CMMC along with hospitals in Rumford and Bridgton, identified unusual software activity June 1 and shut down its technology systems.
When both hospitals diverted Sieberg鈥檚 ambulances over the last couple of weeks, he thought it was a coincidence.
鈥淚 didn鈥檛 realize that they had had a cyber attack happen,鈥� Sieberg said.
He said his crews transport 75% of patients from Litchfield to the two hospitals, especially Central Maine Medical Center 鈥� the only facility in the region where patients can receive certain heart-related procedures.
The situation has impacted patients in need of care; it brought appointments, lab work and medication refills to a standstill, resulting in harrowing stories from patients waiting on emergency surgeries, vital prescriptions and critical medical imaging.
One hospital was using handwritten notes for medical reports, Sieberg said.
鈥淩ecently, we actually ended up not transporting to Central Maine Medical Center because they had no computers. They were literally doing handwritten reports,鈥� Sieberg said. 鈥淪o the crews ended up going over to St. Mary鈥檚 because they could at least take patients in. And my battalion chiefs have said that, fairly frequently, we鈥檒l get phone calls from St. Mary鈥檚 saying that they鈥檙e on diversion.鈥�
Hospitals that are on diversion can鈥檛 take new ambulance arrivals and, instead, redirect crews to the next available facility.
Central Maine Healthcare representatives did not respond to a request for comment Friday.
St. Mary鈥檚 emergency department was on intermittent diversion from May 26-30 for neurological and stroke cases, Karen Sullivan, communications officer at Covenant Health, said in an email Friday.
鈥淚t is important to note that these cases are uncommon in the St. Mary鈥檚 ED under normal circumstances,鈥� Sullivan wrote. 鈥淲e were able to continue care in the ED, the hospital and our provider practices during this time without disruption thanks to long-established downtime procedures. We are no longer on diversion and are fully operational.鈥�
Sieberg said he did not know that the intermittent diversion calls from St. Mary鈥檚 had been connected.
鈥淭hey鈥檝e been within the last couple weeks, so they鈥檙e probably all connected,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 had no idea. That鈥檚 too bad.鈥�
Diversions and longer transport times are routine for United Ambulance Service, a medical transportation service in Lewiston that regularly does inter-facility transports, said Executive Director Paul Gosselin.
鈥淲e may know that there鈥檚 a diversion that happened, but we treat it like it鈥檚 a normal call,鈥� he said. 鈥淒epending on the diversion, it could be for whatever reason 鈥� the IT issue that came about, or it could be the hospital is full, or an MRI machine went down, or something like that. I mean, those things routinely happen. I鈥檓 not saying they happen all the time, but they happen and we just treat it like it鈥檚 a normal transport.鈥�
Local rescue departments do not have that freedom. Many fire departments lack the time, personnel and resources to send ambulance crews farther distances, while maintaining a quick and consistent response to emergency calls back home, officials said.
Chris Moretto, chief of Winthrop Ambulance Service, said his crews have experienced slightly longer wait times transporting to the Lewiston hospitals.
鈥淭here was a crew that went down there the other day,鈥� Moretto said. 鈥淎nd, now that I say that, I do remember that the emergency room was pretty busy and everything was being done by hand versus on the computer.
鈥淚t slowed the process down a little bit, but it wasn鈥檛 terrible, other than that it was really busy,鈥� he said. 鈥淎nd I don鈥檛 know if it was busy because it was abnormally busy with patients, or if it was busy because the system is slowed down.鈥�
Sieberg said his department transported a patient to Central Maine Medical Center on June 12 without being diverted.
Covenant Health, which also owns St. Joseph Hospital in Bangor, has cited the problem as a 鈥渃yber incident.鈥� MaineHealth, another hospital system, similarly characterized the incidents in a statement.
鈥� MaineHealth continues to be vigilant in its efforts to guard against cyber incidents and protect patient information, and out of an abundance of caution, severed connections between its systems and those of Central Maine Healthcare and St. Mary鈥檚 when it became aware of the incidents,鈥� the release said.
The incidents come amid a steady rise in cyberattacks on hospitals across the country. Hackers are targeting patient data, which contains valuable financial information; medical records, addresses and other identifiers.
From 2018-22, there was a 93% increase in large health care breaches reported to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, with a 278% increase in large breaches involving ransomware, according to Peter Cassell, a public affairs specialist at the department鈥檚 Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response.
Now that Sieberg is aware of the cyber incidents, he鈥檒l be sure to check in with the affected hospitals ahead of time, he said.
鈥淣ow that I know that that鈥檚 an issue, I might just clue the guys in so that they can give the hospital an extra heads up to find out if we can come in,鈥� Sieberg said. 鈥淏ecause, obviously, we try to help each other out professionally. If they can鈥檛 handle something, or they鈥檙e super swamped or whatever, we try to give them an extra heads up so that we can know whether to go there or not.鈥�
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