Ashley Wall’s 9-month-old son has spent about two-thirds of his life at the University of Mississippi Medical Center children’s hospital in Jackson. 

Levi, who has cancer, experienced a delay in a critical bone marrow test as a result of the Feb. 19 cyberattack that struck UMMC and led it to cancel appointments and elective procedures statewide. 

The test, which will determine whether he continues treatment or enters hospice care, was planned for the same day as the attack, but was then delayed until Thursday. Doctors told Wall the test results, which are normally returned in a few days, may take as long as a week. 

Because of the delay, Wall chose to bring Levi home on Feb. 19 to Harrisville, 30 miles south of Jackson, for the first time since August. 

“We didn’t want to lose that time with our child,” Wall said.  

Children across Mississippi have been caught in the crosshairs of the cyberattack on the state’s largest public hospital system. The attack forced UMMC to shut down all of its computer systems and has caused patients across the state to go without medical care. Regularly scheduled clinic appointments and elective procedures at UMMC remain canceled through Friday. 

Children’s of Mississippi Hospital, located in Jackson at UMMC, is the only dedicated children’s hospital in the state. It houses the state’s only Level I pediatric trauma unit and pediatric intensive care. The hospital treats 275,000 children statewide each year, some of whom have complex conditions, including cancer, epilepsy, cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anemia, allergies and diabetes.

UMMC is making significant progress in its response to the Feb. 19 cyberattack and restoring systems, and is “hopeful that it will be able to resume normal clinic operations as soon as Monday,” the medical center said in a statement Wednesday. Multiple experts told Mississippi Today the hospital system could face weeks to months of recovery after the attack.

However, some families have been informed that not all elective procedures will resume by Monday. Levi, who was scheduled to undergo an MRI on Feb. 19, was told by doctors Thursday the scan will be postponed further. 

Some families worry that delays in care could seriously affect their children’s health and may force them to restart treatments that improved their condition.

Mary Harwell’s 18-year-old son, Jack, has severe non-verbal autism, cerebral palsy and agitated catatonia, a disorder that causes him to hurt himself and others. For years, Jack and his family endured persistent involuntary violent behaviors, like head hitting, biting and attacks on others. 

“There was no quality of life and our family was falling apart,” said Harwell, who lives in Jackson. “He was just covered in bruises, he was miserable. There was no happiness.”

But for the past three years, electroconvulsive therapy treatments twice a week at UMMC have provided Jack significant relief from his symptoms and restored his quality of life. After just four treatments, Jack’s bruises disappeared, he began eating and regaining weight, he was able to go into a store for the first time in five years, and he began smiling. “He was living again,” Harwell said. 

Since the cyberattack began, Jack has missed three treatments and his symptoms have returned. He stopped eating and sleeping, and has been hitting himself continuously for the past several days, Harwell said. Missing multiple sessions can cause setbacks, forcing patients to restart the treatments at a higher frequency.

Only one other hospital in Mississippi, on the Gulf Coast, offers the treatment. Initially, the facility told Harwell it could not treat Jack without access to his medical records, which UMMC is currently unable to access. Staff later said they might make an exception, but Harwell worries that given Jack’s current, violent condition, she may not be able to safely transport him to the hospital several hours away. 

“It feels like we are starting all over, reliving the nightmare of his condition,” Harwell said. 

Research shows that patient care outcomes decline in the wake of ransomware, or malicious software that holds computer systems or data hostage in demand for a payment, targeting hospitals. 

“Cyberattacks, specifically ransomware on hospitals, kill patients,” said Dr. Hannah Neprash, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, who has studied the effect of cybersecurity attacks on patient care. 

Her 2026 study found that, among Medicare patients hospitalized during the attack, hospitals targeted by ransomware experienced an average increase of 34% to 38% in mortality rates compared to those discharged in the five weeks prior. The impact to patient care was most severe among the sickest patients with the most complex medical needs. 

For families of children with serious medical conditions, the cancellation of elective procedures essential to their kids’ health has been worrisome. 

Jack Jacobs, a high school student from Gulfport, was born with hypoplastic right heart syndrome, a heart condition in which one ventricle is underdeveloped. He has received treatment at UMMC for most of his life. 

Jack had a serious heart procedure scheduled for Feb. 24, but it was canceled as a result of the cyberattack. Although the procedure is not an emergency, it is necessary and not elective, said his mother Susan Jacobs. 

The term “elective” can be misleading, Neprash said. It may be more accurate to call care scheduled versus unscheduled.

“A lot of stuff is in that elective bucket that people take very seriously,” she said, pointing to examples such as cancer treatment. 

Jack’s procedure has not yet been rescheduled. For Susan Jacobs, the uncertainty surrounding the cyberattack and timeline for normal operations to resume has been anxiety-provoking. 

“To not have a clue when your child is going to have a heart procedure is just very disconcerting,” Jacobs said. 

UMMC officials have yet to release information about how extensive the attack was, when canceled appointments will be rescheduled or whether any data has been compromised. The medical center held its last press conference on Feb. 19, the first day of the attack.

The computer system outage at UMMC has extended beyond canceled procedures and has forced caregivers to face additional tough decisions about their children’s care. 

Alisa Hughes, a Jackson resident, has an 8-year-old granddaughter with severe asthma who has received treatment at UMMC since birth. 

Jayln was running a fever and was experiencing difficulty breathing Sunday. Concerned about the security of her granddaughter’s health information, Hughes opted not to take her to the UMMC emergency room, where she typically receives care. At a local urgent care center, Jayln was diagnosed with the flu. 

“We just prayed that they wouldn’t send her to the ER,” Hughes said. “…It was scary knowing that the hospital that you’ve trusted for the last eight years with her, you don’t feel confident taking her to this time.”

The cyberattack has disrupted other areas of the health care system as well. Levi, the 9-month-old with cancer, normally receives his medication at the hospital. But due to the attack, his family had to get the medication from a pharmacy. One medication required prior authorization for insurance coverage, but unable to reach his doctors, the family ended up paying for the $200 medication out of pocket. 

When the family returned a week later, hospital staff said they had never received the message that a prior authorization was needed because the hospital’s phone lines were down. 

Dr. Alan Jones, the associate vice chancellor for health affairs at UMMC, said at the press conference Feb. 19 that the hospital regularly prepares for operational disruptions during regularly scheduled maintenance of the electronic health record. 

Neprash said she is skeptical that downtime protocols, or procedures that kick in during IT system failures and use paper records, adequately prepare facilities for ransomware attacks. 

“There’s a huge difference between being ready for three hours of (electronic health record) downtime versus three days or three weeks,” Neprash said. She noted that each ransomware attack affects different parts of hospitals’ systems, so it can be difficult to prepare for them. 

Her research indicates that larger hospitals and health systems with sophisticated IT infrastructures can experience greater impacts from ransomware attacks compared to their smaller counterparts due to a larger number of interconnected computer systems and greater reliance on technology. 

Wall said she witnessed the effects of these operational disruptions on Levi’s care during his Thursday bone marrow test. What is normally a two-hour procedure ended up taking the entire day, she said. Wall said the hospital’s limited communication has been particularly frustrating given the time-sensitive nature of Levi’s treatment. These complications have made her question whether adequate protocols will be put in place to prevent similar issues in the future. 

However, for many families in Mississippi with children who have complex medical needs, there are few, if any, alternative options except to wait for normal operations to resume. 

“We keep saying, ‘Well, we lived through this for years so we can do it again,’” Harwell said. “We have no choice.” 

Correction, 2/27/2026: This article has been updated to reflect that Wall chose to bring Levi home to Harrisville for the second time since August.