Hospitals cured of mobile phone phobia

ONE OF the greatest myths about mobile phones has been swept aside in Britain. Namely that mobile phones can adversely affect the operation of sensitive medical equipment in hospitals.

The motivation for this change of heart is economics. For example, Labour MP for Gateshead East and Washington West, Sharon Hodgson, led a campaign against the ban on the use of mobile phones in hospitals because in-house hospital systems cost "an arm and a leg".

That's saying something since mobile phone calls aren't exactly cheap. Even the industry watchdog, Ofcom, had been forced to conduct an investigation into the cost of making calls via the two leading service providers - Patientline and Premier Managed Payphones.

Commonsense has finally prevailed. For example, the British Medical Journal found that regular mobile phones affected only four per cent of medical devices at a distance of one metre.

That compared to 41 per cent for emergency services' handsets (presumably using Tetra) and 35 per cent for porters' handsets (presumably using PMR).

So guidance from the Department of Health now says that mobile phones can be used - except near some specialist equipment.

No-one seems to have commented on the fact that mobile phones have been allowed into Irish hospitals for years with no obvious ill effects.

What this has done, of course, is to stick another nail in the coffin of airlines who bizarrely insist that mobile phones and games consoles adversely affect the performance of navigation equipment in aircraft.

This is absolute tosh and the INQ suspects was originally the invention of pilots searching desperately for an excuse as to why they'd stuffed their craft into the tarmac when all their electrical equipment appeared to be working normally afterwards on investigation.

Of course now we're going to have loads of jokes about mobile phone users saying, "Hi, honey. I'm just in pre-op. I'll be out soon." When, in fact, they're down the pub. µ