The Saskatoon Obstetric & Gynecologic Consultants is providing this notice to advise its patients of a malware attack that may have impacted their personal health information.

We take the safeguarding and protection of our patients’ personal health information very seriously and have a number of safeguards in place to protect against malware attacks. Unfortunately, a malware attack bypassed these safeguards in late December 2020. As soon as we became aware of the attack, we immediately engaged our external IT providers as well as external forensic experts to contain and eliminate the malware and to investigate the incident.

The forensic investigation has now been completed and was not able to confirm if any personal health information was compromised as a result of the incident. We have and will continue to monitor the internet for any evidence that personal health information was compromised and will provide updates if further information becomes available. However, to date, there is no evidence that any personal health information was compromised.

Although there is no evidence that personal health information was compromised, we are advising our patients of the incident out of an abundance of caution so that they may take steps to protect themselves. It is always important for individuals to take steps to protect themselves as information from public and other sources can be used to commit criminal actions such as fraud and identify theft against individuals. The common steps include monitoring accounts for and reporting any suspicious activity and securing networks and information with appropriate virus protection and passwords. The federal Privacy Commissioner has some helpful resources for individuals who want to learn more about steps to protect themselves: https://www.priv.gc.ca/en/privacy-topics/identities/identity-theft/.

We are and will continue working with law enforcement, the College of Physicians and Surgeons, the Saskatchewan Medical Association and the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Saskatchewan to mitigate the impact of this incident.

We understand the concern this situation may cause and deeply regret the impact of this incident on our patients.

If you have any questions or concerns relating to this incident, please contact us at 306-653-5970.

You may also reach out to the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Saskatchewan if you have concerns about your privacy:

Free Telephone (within Saskatchewan): 1-877-748-2298

Email: webmaster@oipc.sk.ca