Has anyone actually ever caused equipment to malfunction by using a mobile phone in a hospital? If so, does this mean the equipment is unstable?
During a four-day stay in hospital last year, “Nurse A” caught me using my mobile phone during the evening and warned me of possible interference with monitoring equipment. I told her that I had read an article in a scientific journal which stated that no mobile phone would affect any electronic equipment unless it was just a very few centimetres away from it and there was no such equipment in my ward.
“Nurse B” overheard the conversation and later on told me that I was probably right. She explained that the hospital had a recently installed telephone system for the use of the patients and visitors. It generated considerable income for the hospital from outgoing calls and from charging a premium rate to incoming callers. Mobile phone use was making a hefty dent in income and “Nurse A” was merely following hospital policy which was based more on commercial than technical considerations.
Brian Moss, Tamworth, Staffordshire
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Contributors to The Lancet a year ago (issue 361) could find no evidence of interference with hospital equipment by mobile phones, certainly if used further than one metre from a particular piece of apparatus.
The use of mobiles in outpatient waiting areas should be discouraged for social reasons. Some hospitals have a contract with a company which provides personal bedside phones for patients prepared to pay for them; the disadvantage is that patients away from their beds — in the lavatory or the day room — cannot hear them. The use of a mobile in wards might be preferable, but this might conflict with the commercial interests of the hospital.
Notices banning the use of mobile phones should give a valid reason.
Dr Michael Essex-Lopresti, London N14
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