A Telus network and cellular problem affected essential phone services in the Okanagan from Thursday night through Friday morning.
The BC RCMP stated that the problem occurred during Telus’ planned maintenance work on their fiber network.
The BC RCMP statement mentioned that the outage unexpectedly affected all communities in the South East District (SED) and Daajing Giids, Smithers and New Aiyansh in the North District (ND) when calling their local RCMP detachments.
Although the public can still call the RCMP, all calls are being redirected to Prince George in the ND.
The problem also affected BC Emergency Health Services and caused a code grey at multiple Interior Health (IH) locations, including at the Penticton Regional Hospital.
A Code Grey is an emergency status used by IH after a system failure that has compromised health care operations or service delivery. This indicates an urgent need for attention.
Due to the Telus problem, Interior Health implemented a code grey at multiple sites across the region around 11:15 p.m. on March 21. Existing protocols were used to manage this situation, and critical and inpatient care services continued at affected sites.
The problem occurred after a similar situation at the Kelowna General Hospital (KGH) three weeks earlier, when the entire computer system went down, preventing staff from accessing patient files digitally.
KGH’s code grey occurred on the same night as a mass casualty incident. Emergency staff at the time said it created a potentially risky situation.
Interior Health clarified that the code grey on February 28 was related to an IT service disruption and was unrelated to this Telus incident on March 21.
In Penticton, the code grey mainly affected phone services, raising the question of what the plan is if critical infrastructure fails again.
The health authority had committed to reviewing the situation at KGH, but did not provide an update on the review in their statement.
Interior Health stated that despite the challenges, emergency response planning is a top priority, with ongoing staff training and regular updates to emergency plans, allowing them to effectively handle various emergency situations to maintain health services. They also thanked the staff for their quick response to the TELUS outage to ensure continuity of service and care for patients.
