Following the cyber-attack on Croatia's largest hospital, KBC Zagreb, and numerous reports that oncology patients were unable to receive radiotherapy because their radiotherapy schedules had been lost, the hospital has issued a statement.

We are reproducing this statement in full:

“On the day of the cyber-attack on KBC Zagreb, none of the 5 linear accelerators were in operation.

On the following day, 28 June, 2 devices were put back into operation after a security check. The remaining 3 were out of operation until 10 July 2024, around 1 p.m., due to necessary security checks.

“The emergency irradiations were carried out as usual”

During this period, emergency palliative radiotherapy was carried out as usual on the 2 functioning machines, with staff extending their working hours until 23:30.

For this reason, we were forced to create new radiotherapy schedules for the patients who were in the middle of radiotherapy and for those who were prepared for it, which we started after 1 pm on 10 July 2024.

On 11 July 2024, the first 10 patients received radiotherapy.

“We will normalise operations”

During the period in which 3 of the 5 linear accelerators were not in operation, we did not know how long this situation would last, so we could not accept new patients for radiotherapy planning.

In the coming days, with considerable effort from all the staff in the Radiotherapy Planning and Delivery Department (working in 3 shifts and at weekends), we will normalise operations as quickly as possible, maintaining the quality of work as before the attack.

After starting radiotherapy on the Siemens Oncor linear accelerator yesterday, we started radiotherapy on the Siemens Varian Halcyon linear accelerator today. This afternoon, radiotherapy will begin for the patients for whom plans have been drawn up,” said KBC Zagreb in its press release.