Our local hospital is updating its policy on the use of mobile phones on site. The existing policy is sensibly liberal and recognises that the evidence of harm resulting from electromagnetic interference (EMF) is remarkably thin, but that the consequences are potentially dangerous.
It seems that if you bring an active (i.e. switched-on) mobile phone within a couple of metres or so of an electronic medical ‘device’ (monitor, infusion pump, whatever), the device could malfunction. It probaly won’t malfunction, but it might: good territory for precautionary principle afficionados, perhaps. Nevertheless, our existing policy basically says, don’t use mobiles within a few feet of medical equipment attached to patients.
However, a few nut-heads seem to be fanatically opposed to mobile phones. Period. Official-looking (but actualy unofficial) notices have appeared all over the hospital stating that mobile phones must be switched off, and some individuals have been subjected to verbal abuse for using their mobiles in public areas of the hospital.
A revised policy then appeared in draft seeking to ban the use of mobiles completely in any of the hospital buildings, and recommending the installation of monitoring devices to detect their ‘illicit’ use. This produced a flood of objections, the more sensible of which drew attention the benefits of mobile phones for visitors as well as staff (especially since public phones are extremely scarce). Ironically, a couple of our cardiologists had only shortly before published a very balanced editorial in the British Medical Journal pointing out that mobiles are not as hazardous as believed and recommending that they should be allowed at least in non-clinical areas. Others have taken a contrary view: the South Tees NHS Trust has followed the precautionary principle and opted for an outright ban, whilst, policy-makers in Glasgow opted for creating several mobile friendly places where the nearest electromedical equipment was at least 5 m away.
A recent on-line review revisits the evidence, and again finds it largely unconvincing. The reviewer neatly turns the argument on its head and suggests that maybe the problem (if there is one) is not with mobile phones, but with malfunctioning medical equipment. Perhaps it is more to do with poor EMF shielding in just a few medical devices rather than a problem with all mobile phones.
Fortunately, the local policy-makers seem convinced, and the ban now proposed will not be total, but applied to a just few critical clinical areas. Not really much of a change after all, except that monitoring for illicit use is againthreatened: something else our cash-strapped hospital can ill afford.
