Source: Radio New Zealand
Manage My Health was due to begin informing patients affected by the security breach on Thursday. RNZ / Finn Blackwell
Frustrated patients who fear their highly sensitive health records may have been stolen in Manage My Health’s cyber security breach are pushing their GPs to tell them.
Manage My Health was due to begin informing affected patients on Thursday and meanwhile has referred people to its website for more information.
However, RNZ has received multiple reports of the website crashing.
Have you been affected? Share your stories with us at: iwitness@rnz.co.nz
The company said it was taking the lead to avoid patients getting “multiple or confusing notifications” – a stance supported by General Practice New Zealand, which represents primary health organisations.
Yet some practices have already let their own patients know whether they were affected.
Posting anonymously in an online New Zealand forum, a sexual assault survivor urged others with a similar history not to wait for Manage My Health to get in touch.
After “pushing”, the GP confirmed the person’s name was on the list of patients whose records were accessed – but days later, Manage My Health had yet make contact.
The writer urged anyone who was worried to contact their clinic directly, as they all had lists of which patients were impacted.
Health documents were not “harmless admin” and such information could be “life-altering” if made public, the person wrote.
Another sexual assault survivor who was still waiting to hear anything told RNZ the data breach was hugely worrying.
“I’m so angry. My sexual abuse records of 30 years could rip my family apart.”
In its latest update on Wednesday night, Manage My Health said it continued to “work around the clock” with authorities and agencies to resolve the matter for patients and general practices.
“We sincerely apologise for the pain and disruption that this incident has caused to our providers and patients as a result of this criminal activity against our systems.”
Email notifications to affected patients would include an 0800 number to get “support and assistance”.
Manage My Health website crashing
Other patients reported being sent updates by their GPs via Manage My Health, but being unable to get access to them.
“The performance degradation of the platform (almost certainly due to being inundated with traffic of everyone else anxiously trying to figure out what information of theirs might be at risk) made it virtually impossible to actually log in, let alone see this message and the advice it contained,” one patient told RNZ.
“Upon phoning my GP, they confirmed that they were receiving multiple calls saying the same thing.”
Once she managed to log in, the platform kept randomly logging her out.
Manage My Health has been approached for comment.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
