Superior North EMS Ambulance - Acadia Broadcasting File Photo

A potential cyber attack has knocked out software used by paramedics across the province, including here in the Thunder Bay District.

Acting Commander for EMS Operations Shane Muir has confirmed the outage of their live dashboard, which helps SNEMS track and monitor ambulances as well as hold and transfer patient data.

The loss of the live dashboards means they have to resort to some older techniques.

“Kind of go back to the old style in ways of doing things and actively monitoring and being in constant contact with our dispatch to know where our ambulances are and how many we have left. So it’s set us back a little bit.”

The software outage has also cut SNEMS off from a server which holds all of its call reports.

“So doing things like investigations and looking at previous calls is a little bit of a challenge. I know ESO, the company that runs these servers, is actively working on it right now to get everything back up and running.”

Muir believes it might be a little on the over cautious side of things but would rather the company do it that way than have any breach.