Problems at Sask.’s Healthline 811 due to global IT outage

People calling Healthline 811 Friday morning in Saskatchewan were left looking elsewhere for advice, thanks to the worldwide IT outage.

The Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) said the resource was unavailable for several hours — it was back up around 8 a.m.

The SHA said the problem was related to the update which caused worldwide IT outages.

“At this time patients can continue to access emergency or acute care services delivered in SHA facilities,” read the health authority’s statement around 1 p.m.

The SHA made a point of saying eHealth confirmed this was not a cyber attack and that the IT systems were secure.

Systems around the world were affected by the outage, caused by a faulty update that was deployed by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike.

Several companies reported problems, as well as governments and health authorities. In Newfoundland and Labrador, the province’s main information system used to manage patient and financial information was hit by the outage, and it was impacting some health-care services.