Temporary disruptions have been recorded in the operation of Ukraine's electronic health system (EHS). According to reports passed on by RBC-Ukraine, citing the Helsi app and the National Health Service of Ukraine (NHSU), patients may have experienced delays in receiving electronic prescriptions, referrals, and medical conclusions. The relevant authorities and the service emphasize that this is a temporary malfunction rather than a systemic failure, and that citizens' personal medical data remained protected during this period.
Cause of the outage: aftermath of an attack and the work of one of the providers
The Helsi service explained that an emergency situation arose at a data center of one of the providers as a result of an enemy attack, which affected the operation of the EHS. As a result, doctors were temporarily unable to issue certain electronic prescriptions, referrals, and medical conclusions. Helsi specifically noted that the delays are not tied to any particular doctor or medical facility, and assured users: "Your medical data is protected and preserved. There is no threat of its loss."
Timeline of service restoration
According to NHSU, on September 17, technical difficulties at one of the providers caused problems in the operation of the EHS; however, on the same day the main functions of the system's central database were restored, followed later by work with signed declaration content. Helsi reported that the state system's operation was restored on September 17 at 14:00, while some services may have continued to experience temporary glitches and were gradually restored. The Ministry of Health clarified that on September 18, as of 12:00, all components of the EHS central database were operating in normal mode, and the main digital services were available to users. They also explained the mechanism: during the technical work on September 17 until 14:00, medical workers could create documents in their medical information systems in draft format, and after restoration complete their signing and submission.
What patients should do during the outage
Helsi advises those waiting for a prescription or referral to check with their doctor how to proceed during the temporary unavailability of the system and when the documents can be finalized. If a patient has a scheduled doctor's visit, the service urges them not to cancel it solely because of an outage notice: medical facilities have established procedures for operating when the EHS is temporarily unavailable. The parties promised to provide additional information on the full restoration of all services.
Contradictory data
The statements from the parties differ in the wording of the cause and in the timeline. Helsi directly links the outage to an "emergency situation at a data center of one of the providers" resulting from an enemy attack. The Ministry of Health, for its part, describes September 17 as a period of "technical work at the EHS central database level due to difficulties in the operation of one of the service providers caused by the aftermath of an enemy shelling," and attributes the current delays in SMS message delivery to one of the mobile operators, emphasizing that this is unrelated to the shelling aftermath and does not affect the generation of electronic documents. There is also a nuance in the timeline: while Helsi points to the system's restoration on September 17 at 14:00, NHSU on September 18 by 09:00 again recorded problems — this time at the message-sending stage — which, according to the Ministry of Health, were resolved by 12:00 the same day.
Context: strikes on telecom infrastructure
RBC-Ukraine previously reported that on September 17, an attack damaged a building in Kyiv Oblast housing "Kyivstar" equipment; the company's employees were not injured, and services to subscribers continued to be provided. On September 11, the "Kyivstar" engineering team's office in Kyiv was damaged in a drone attack. Notably, since August 2022, the medical service Helsi has been owned by the company "Kyivstar." Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health noted that over the past three months, the EHS uptime indicator had been above 96%.
