Using mobiles in hospitals can be dangerous

Using cellular phones near hospital beds and critical care medical equipment can lead to electromagnetic interference. Critical care equipment is vulnerable to electromagnetic interference posed by new age cellular phones. It can disrupt pacemakers, switch off ventilators and cause a lot of problems. Other malfunctions attributed to electromagnetic interference include complete stops with no alarms in syringe pumps and incorrect pulsing by an external pacemaker. To assess the potential danger of using mobile phones in hospitals, Dutch researchers at the University of Amsterdam recorded nearly 50 incidents of electromagnetic interference from cell phone use in hospitals and classified 75 percent of them as significant or hazardous. On testing 61 different medical devices, it was found that most of the incidents stemmed from the latest General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) signal, a new-generation technology that also allows wireless Internet access. This study contradicts the results of the one taken up by researchers at Mayo Clinic who found that 300 tests over a five-month period turned up no noticeable interference with important hospital equipment due to regular mobile phone use. The results underline the importance of keeping mobile phones switched off in hospitals. The policy to keep mobile phones at least 1 metre away from the critical care bedside still seems warranted.