A second before the operation, the computers at the hospital collapsed:
Shlomo Brill, 81, from Haifa, was scheduled to undergo knee replacement surgery, exactly the morning the hacker attack on Hillel Yaffe Hospital in Hadera began.
Last Tuesday he was hospitalized and on Wednesday morning was taken to the operating room.
But at the last minute the plans changed.
"I was hospitalized the day before the surgery," Brill recalls that morning's drama.
"They prepared me for the operation, explained to me the procedure, took blood and performed more tests. I was fasting before the operation. The next morning, at 6:30, I was taken to the operating room. I was before the operation and the anesthetist came and explained the anesthesia. Suddenly the computers fell. "It happened. Without computers, it is impossible to operate. Wait and wait, they did not know what was happening."
The hospital in Hadera may have been the victim of a cyber attack, but it is not the only one that was the target of that attack: the Ministry of Health's cyber system estimated yesterday that other hospitals, including Barzilai, were targeted by the crackers who tried to disable their hospitalization system.
Hillel Yaffe Hospital, under cyber attack, Photo: Spokeswoman for Hillel Yaffe Hospital
News 12 reported today that among these hospitals were also Wolfson and Sheba, as well as six other hospitals.
Prof. Hezi Levy, director of Barzilai Hospital, said yesterday that the medical institution performed "a series of backup operations and severed some of our ties with suspicious addresses and with abroad."
Knee to idleness
Eventually, a few hours later, Brill was given no choice but to return to the ward while he was still fasting.
"Not just me, they brought up everyone who was supposed to have surgery that morning," he describes, "I asked if they were going home, and they said no. They said they would wait to see what happened. "We did not eat, because we were fasting for the operation. At 13:30 we were told that it would not be possible to operate. We packed our things and went home."
Brill waits quite a bit of time for this surgery, regardless of what happened, but looks at what happened in a relatively conciliatory tone.
He has not yet been scheduled for surgery.
At the same time, in Hillel Yaffe, great efforts were made to back up the computers that were shut down by those hackers.
The hospital said in response to the current situation: "We are working around the clock to return to a work routine. At this stage there is a gradual increase in alternative technology systems."
Dr. Mickey Dodkevich, the hospital's director, admitted that they were "in the midst of a complex and challenging event."