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Some patients say recent health care
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system data breaches are putting their
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health and potentially their lives at
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risk. Thanks for joining us at 6 today.
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I'm Brian Yono and I'm Samantha York.
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You may remember multiple hospitals in
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Maine have taken their computer networks
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offline recently after breaches were
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detected. For the most part, they've
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said patient care hasn't been
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compromised. However, however, not
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everyone agrees with that assessment.
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One Central Main Healthcare patient says
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his cancer treatment has been put in
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jeopardy. Here's Pearl Small. The staff
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had to be stressed out, you know,
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dealing with that for 3 weeks. Rick
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McVey has nothing but good things to say
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about the staff at Central Main Healthc
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Care's cancer care center in Lewon. The
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radiation department was just
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outstanding. You know, trying to keep us
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up to speed. But McVeyy's experience
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with the hospital administration is a
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different story. I was learning
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patience, should we say. McVey found out
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he has prostate cancer in January. His 5
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and a half weeks of radiation treatments
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every day Monday through Friday started
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in May. But 3 days in, the cancer care
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center paused his treatment, citing a
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systemwide outage across all three
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central Maine healthcare hospitals. You
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don't think about the dozens of people
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who really need radiation treatment
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worse than I do. Um, so they were they
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were missing their treatments, too.
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While staff at the cancer care center
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were going above and beyond to keep him
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updated, even using their personal cell
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phones, McVey says the communication
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from the hospital administration was
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almost non-existent. I'd kind of like to
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know if if my information was
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compromised. That would that would be
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helpful. We have repeatedly reached out
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to Central Main Healthcare to ask about
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that very concern, but they have not
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answered the question. In some cases,
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not responding at all. In the most
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recent press release about this
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situation from June 18th, the company
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said almost all phone lines had been
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restored, but they are still assessing
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the restoration of their network systems
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and there is no timeline for complete
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recovery. It would be nice if they had a
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little more information coming out, you
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know, for everybody. McVey got a call on
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Tuesday telling him the cancer center
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could take patients again. And while he
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still has a lot of unanswered questions,
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he's hoping the rest of his treatments
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in Lewon. Pearl Small News Center Maine.
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McVey also says he was not experiencing
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any symptoms when he was diagnosed with
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prostate cancer. It was a simple PSA
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blood test that caught it early and he's
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hoping more men will get that vital
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test. Doctors say if you are a male over
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50, the test should be part of your
