November 2, 2021 – St. John’s, NL: The information technology (IT) systems outage across the province continues to impact a number of health-related services. Eastern Health is continuing to implement contingency plans and is focused on the delivery of emergency care as the Newfoundland and Labrador Centre for Health Information (NLCHI) and Bell, in collaboration with the Department of Health and Community Services, work to resolve the outage that is affecting the province’s health-care related IT systems.
Emergency services in acute care facilities only will proceed on Wednesday and Thursday, November 3 and 4, 2021. Patients and clients who have not been contacted directly, should assume that their appointments have been cancelled. Appointments are not being rescheduled at this time, and patients will be contacted directly once the IT system outage is resolved.
Patients who have questions regarding appointments, procedures and surgeries scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday, November 3 and 4, 2021 may call the temporary patient inquiries line: 1-833-777-1276.
The following services continue to be available:
- Pediatric chemotherapy is continuing at the Janeway Children’s Health and Rehabilitation Centre. Patients are being contacted directly.
- All high-risk prenatal appointments and one-week checks
- Blood testing for patients requiring INRs (international normalized ratios)
- In-person dialysis at all locations throughout the region
- Maternal-Fetal Assessment Unit appointments
Community-based services continue to be available through our community offices, as follows:
- Community Supports including home nursing visits, Home Support, and Direct Home Services.
- Public Health including child health clinics and preschool health check clinics, all Influenza and COVID-19 vaccination clinics with the exception of the controlled setting COVID-19 clinic
- Mental Health and Addictions community counselling services
- Rehabilitation Services including outpatient rehabilitation clinics provided at Dr. L.A. Miller Centre
- Primary Health Care clinics including virtual care and face-to-face visits
Special Assistance Program (SAP)
SAP clients who require products on an emergency basis are asked to contact their case worker until the IT systems outage is resolved.
eRecruit: Online Job Postings and Applications
The eRecruit website, which includes internal and external job postings at Eastern Health, is currently unavailable as well external email correspondence is affected. Closing dates for all current postings will be extended when the IT outage is resolved.
Appointments at Private Doctors’ Clinics
Patients who attend appointments at private doctors’ clinics are encouraged to check with those clinics directly.
Eastern Health Suppliers and Vendors
Payment processing for suppliers and vendors as well as email correspondence is affected. Those who currently receive payments via cheque are strongly encouraged to provide the required information for electronic funds transfer (EFT). EFT information can be mailed or dropped off to the following address: Eastern Health Business Office, Attention: Accounts Payable, 760 Topsail Road, Mount Pearl, NL, A1N 3J5. Suppliers and vendors can make inquiries via telephone to 709-752-4534.
Email and Phone Systems
Email and some phone systems, including the Client Relations line, continue to be affected by this outage. Work is underway to restore phone service as soon as possible.
Eastern Health recognizes the impacts to patients, clients and residents and we apologize for the inconvenience.
We also thank the public for their patience, recognizing that many services, including those in Emergency Departments, may experience unexpected or unavoidable delays, as Eastern Health staff work to adjust processes to ensure patient safety.
We are committed to keeping the public informed about this unanticipated disruption in services. Updates with be provided as information becomes available via Eastern Health’s website at www.easternhealth.ca and social media platforms, Facebook (www.facebook.com/EasternHealthNL) and Twitter (@EasternHealthNL).
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