Mobile phones may be allowed to be used in hospitals!!!

[McDreamy]

About time! Now we don't all have to go out and buy those special phones that Dr's have been able to use in hospitals for all this time!!

Er, docs don't have special phones, they get told to turn them off just like anyone else!

Actually we have known for years that mobiles are safe in hospitals, except near to an ITU, but hospitals have been unwilling to risk allowing them (though a lot turn a blind eye).

Another factor is that many hospitals have lucrative contracts with Patientline for personal phone/ TV/ internet for patients. If they allow mobiles, then many people won't have to pay the 45p perminute that patientline charge.

I regularly used one when I was in the hospital waiting for dd3 ( was in for few weeks) I asked, and they only said don't use it when I was being monitored. I didn't get the whole - don't use in hospital thing ( or at least not in an antenatal wing of a maternity centre)

I sed mine while in hospital and so did eveyone else!

Tissy I was being sarcastic of course they don't have special phones

I've always used mine too

been using mine in hospitals for ageeees. even spoke to dh on a mobile in ITU. i called the ITU and asked how he was, the nurse asked if iwanted to actually speak to him myself, gave me her mobile number and i spoke to him like that.

I used mine with no problems.

I was told by hospital staff that its ok to use your mobile if its a digital one.

I sort of appreciate the charge for a personal TV and internet connection (but £2.50 per day is steep).

I had dd before Patientline came to our hospital, and I was stuck in a single room after a section for 5 days and would have killed for a TV. Couldn't/ didn't want to walk to the communal lounge, and got fed up with reading

Aren't all mobile phones digital these days anyway??

here

Mobiles may be safe, but they do interfere with CTG monitoring - I had to have thrice daily monitoring with dd and it used to take ages to get the required 30 miutes continuous because mobiles kept breaking the trace -sometimes we could even hear other peoples conversations on the equipment.

But because hospital staff had a blanket, no phones policy that doesn't make sense, people felt justified in ignoring it

In some ways, this is brilliant.

But if old "tell 'im to finish 'is fucking bottle and 'e does" next to me (talking about her 5lb 5-week premature baby) had had free reign with a mobile phone instead of the expensive hospital one...

But you have to be pretty close to the machine in order for it to interfere don't you?

Maybe they'll have to introduce "quiet wards" like quiet carriages on a train

Yes - it was clandestine use in the ward itself that was the problem.

Big study done recently and mobile phones absolutely do not interfere with medical equipment....it's all just ignorance and one big racket to get you to use their expensive hospital phones.
article here

PS Also true for airplanes too...don't interfere and should be allowed on planes...but then they'd lose all that income from the expensive plane phones.

Mmmmn, Selina's always using hers in Casualty. I did wonder .......

I'm in two minds about this...DS has been in hospital twice and I did use my mobile on the ward. I tried to be thoughtful about it though, kept ringtone down abd tried not to use ity passed about 9pm or too early. BUT before DS was born I was in hospital, for only one night, in a ward with three other patients, and the mobiles kept on going off practicallly all night.

Maybe they do need some restrictions on when they can be used, and kept on vibrate, or at least quiter ringtones...

Wishful thinking though, most people these days only think about Number One....

DH has always used his at work. Although he was once speaking to me from ITU and the nurse in the backgound was trying to 'chastise' him.

they have been allowed in ours for a few years now. Only in wards away from NICU and ICU though

I used mine when dd2 was born 2 yrs ago with the blessing of the midwives - there was no problem at all.

A few hospitals have had 'mobile friendly zones' for some time - to let patients/visitors use their phones in areas away from machines that may be affected.
When I was staying overnight on the ante natal ward before dd was born someone left their mobile behind when they were taken up to the delivery room (at about 2am)....it rang every 10 mins or so for the next 2 hours, keeping everyone in the ward awake. It was a rare form of torture

A friend of mine was in hospital for six months before he passed last June, he couldn't afford the patient line fees plus the petrol for his wife to visit (he was 165 miles from home in a specialist unit). A mobile would have made such a difference to those last few months, but because he was bedbound he couldn't have even sneakily broken the rules

I remember hoiking myself to the payphone in labour as well to locate DH to come in (I'd been in pre-ds1), ran out of money and had to reverse call my Mum to get her to call round the possibles (turned out that his car had broken down and he was being towed into the maternity unit )