Welsh hospitals to allow mobile phones

The Department of Health recommended that mobile phones be permitted in English hospitals in January 2009, but Wales has spent an additional 20 months coming to the same conclusion, reports The Register . It now recommends that mobile phones be permitted in Welsh hospitals, within areas to be defined by the hospitals themselves. Mobiles were banned in hospitals for fear they would interfere with medical equipment, a fear which has only been proven in the most extreme of situations - interference has been experimentally demonstrated, but the risk is small. Most hospitals forbid mobiles in intensive care wards, though that is largely because ring tones sound too similar to the emergency alarms. The ban on mobiles turned into a nice little earner for Patientline, who snagged a monopoly on telecommunications and TV in many hospitals. The company installed expensive bedside terminals, and charged commensurate fees for using them, to the disgust of patients and politicians. Edwina Hart, health minister for the Welsh Assembly, has now issued guidelines saying that mobile phones should be allowed and that rates for calling and TV use should be more prominently advertised.