Tara Wilson learned Friday that her double mastectomy, scheduled for Monday, had been canceled again, this time due to a Thursday cyberattack that targeted the University of Mississippi Medical Center, forcing hospital staff to close clinics and cancel elective procedures statewide. 

Her initial breast cancer surgery was planned nine days ago, and the Monticello resident has been taking unpaid leave from her job at Dollar General since then. Wilson’s surgery requires a long recovery time because she has Von Willebrand disease, a bleeding disorder that makes it difficult for blood to clot, and the extended leave is causing her family financial hardship. 

Due to UMMC’s ongoing cyberattack, Wilson has not yet been able to contact the medical center to reschedule the surgery for the third time. 

“It just seems like everything is conspiring against us and not allowing us to prosper,” Wilson told Mississippi Today. “It’s a very hard season.” 

Patients across Mississippi are missing health care appointments and surgeries after a cyberattack led to UMMC shutting down its computer systems, including its electronic health records. This shutdown also affected county public health departments that run on the same record-sharing system. 

The medical center does not yet know the extent of the infiltration or how long it will take before returning to normal operations, it said in a statement Friday. Specialized FBI teams and federal authorities are assisting, along with three national vendors with expertise in cyber forensics, recovery and security. By Friday afternoon, UMMC phone systems and email services continued to be out of service or unreliable, according to a statement from the hospital system.

UMMC’s Wi-Fi remained down Friday afternoon, according to an email sent to UMMC staff and obtained by Mississippi Today. 

Hospitals and emergency departments within the UMMC system are operating through downtime protocols, or procedures that kick in during IT system failures. The medical center is again receiving transfers of patients needing a higher-level of care from other hospitals, according to a statement posted to social media Friday.

Peggy Sellars of Rolling Fork was with her husband, who was recovering from an emergency lower back surgery, at the medical center’s Jackson hospital Thursday when she said she began to notice the impact of the attack on hospital operations. She described a scene of chaos Thursday morning, but said operations had stabilized by the afternoon. 

Her husband was in pain Thursday morning after his pain medication was delayed for three hours. Sellars missed breakfast Thursday because the cafeteria could only accept cash and ATMs were not working that morning. She said she was able to eat lunch after one cashier began accepting credit cards later in the day. 

Her husband, George Sellars, injured his back while clearing limbs out of their yard to make it easier for lineworkers to repair power lines after the winter ice storm hit Mississippi in late January. The couple went without electricity for 16 days. 

It’s just been one thing after another, she said — from the months-long flood in 2019 to the devastating 2023 tornado, and then January’s ice storm. 

“It just keeps coming,” Sellars said. She said she is appreciative of everything UMMC has done to mitigate the impact of the attack.  

UMMC is working to create a way for patients to get in touch about routine medical or medication needs, and reaching out to patients receiving time-sensitive treatments, like chemotherapy, to set up appointments, officials said. 

Dr. Alan Jones, vice chancellor for health affairs at UMMC, said Thursday that the university was working to set up a phone line for patients to get more information about rescheduled or upcoming appointments, in addition to creating an operational plan for providing other medical services. The medical center has not yet publicized this phone number.

“We were able to conduct several emergent surgeries yesterday and will do more today,” said the Friday email to UMMC staff. 

UMMC facilities include seven hospitals and 35 clinics statewide. The dialysis clinic at the Jackson Medical Mall remains operational and open for scheduled appointments.

The academic medical center’s IT systems are down, including the electronic medical record system, which stores patient medical history, billing, test results, appointment booking and chart documentation. As a precaution, the medical center shut down all of its network systems and will conduct risk assessments before bringing systems back online. 

The cyberattack occurred Thursday morning and the medical system has been in contact with the attackers, Woodward said Thursday during a press conference. She declined to answer questions about what the attackers have said or asked for, but said the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency were aware of the hack. 

Woodward said Thursday that UMMC was trying to determine what would happen to patients’ personal information stored in the hospital’s computer systems, but the hospital had taken down the systems to prevent potential privacy breaches. 

More than 10,000 employees work across UMMC, making the institution one of the state’s largest employers, according to the university. Over 3,000 students are enrolled in the medical center, which has an annual budget of roughly $2 billion. 

Woodward said in an email to staff and students Thursday obtained by Mississippi Today that payroll would be unaffected by the cybersecurity attack, and employees should continue to report to work.

“We anticipate that this will be a multi-day event and are working with federal authorities and national experts on our response,” Woodward said in the email. 

UMMC runs the state’s only Level 1 trauma center, programs that are best equipped to respond to severe medical emergencies. Woodward said the hospital is continuing to serve Level 1 patients using manual procedures.

More than 60 miles south in Monticello, Wilson said she is frustrated that her double mastectomy will be delayed again, though she does not blame UMMC for the cancellation. The pain of having to wait longer for the surgery is amplified by the worry her four children feel for her.

“They know that this is very serious,” she said. 

The anger Wilson feels is offset only by the fact that her grandchild is scheduled to be born on Monday — an occasion she thought she would miss due to her mastectomy and subsequent recovery. 

“I’ll be there, and I’ll be able to hold her.”