CHwapi hospital

CHwapi hospital is a healthcare provider located in Belgium. It operates as a general hospital offering a range of medical services to the local population. The facility provides inpatient care, including admission and monitoring of patients requiring overnight stays. It also delivers outpatient services such as consultations, diagnostic examinations, and follow‑up visits. Surgical procedures are performed at the hospital, covering both urgent and planned operations. The hospital’s admissions system manages patient entry and coordinates bed allocation across its wards.

In January 2021 the hospital experienced a ransomware attack that affected approximately eighty of its servers, forcing staff to revert to paper‑based records for admissions and related workflows. As a result, non‑urgent surgeries were postponed while most outpatient consultations continued, with patients being notified of changes via text message or telephone call. The incident did not involve data theft or a ransom demand, distinguishing it from many ransomware events that seek extortion. The attack highlighted the hospital’s dependence on digital infrastructure for routine clinical operations. No confirmed link was established between this event and a similar ransomware incident that occurred in the French city of Angers around the same time. The episode underscores the importance of cybersecurity resilience for healthcare institutions in Belgium.