Patients affected by today’s cyber attack at Lister Hospital in Stevenage have been reacting to the news.

Shirley Sinclair was at the Coreys Mill Lane hospital for a routine appointment which she had been waiting for for the past 18 months when news of the cyber attack emerged.

Speaking to reporter Martin Elvery at the hospital, her husband Alan Sinclair said: “There was no sign of any panic it was fairly quiet. They just advised that there possibilities of any X-rays or computer services because they were down.

“And we later found out there had been a cyber attack and that 14 sites had been affected.

The couple praised hospital staff for the way they handled the situation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvEZqiOBxiQ&feature=youtu.be

About the attack, Mr Sinclair added: “It’s despicable, life-threatening, and dangerous to people.”

Julian Williams was at the hospital with his wife who gave birth to a baby boy, Jack, just as the cyber attack hit this afternoon.

He praised the midwives who delivered his first child, saying: “They did an amazing job. They mentioned the system had crashed and it didn’t seem to bother them.

“The phones weren’t working and the staff couldn’t use their phones even between wards because they were worried that someone was trying to get information out.”

One woman who wished to remain anonymous told us that her husband, who is an in-patient, wasn’t able to get his MRI scan because all the systems had gone down.

She said: “It’s despicable. People could possibly die because their injuries are unassessed.

“The staff are dealing with it in the best way they can and people are in the best hands they can be, but it upsets me that everyone’s caught up in this terrible situation.

“I don’t know what this country is coming to. What sort of human beings would do this?”