Cost of phone calls in hospital

[Catherine]

I have a relative in hospital at the moment and we have been given a 0700 number to contact her should we wish to chat to her.

I called the number and got a long (1 minute 23 second) message telling me that it costs more to ring on a mobile, etc, and that if you make sure your call lasts five minutes or more (£2.00)the person will receive 1 hour free televison Then it tells you that the costs of the calls are 40p minute after 6pm and 50p minute before. Then you eventually get through to the person. What a rip off She has had to pay £10 for three days telephone usage and three days television usage. I cant begin to tell you how mad it makes me feel that some who is already not well is being ripped of with charges like this. RANT OVER

[oldherbaceous]

Dear Catherine, i would like to add the price of the car parking on to the list as well.
I know it goes towards the running costs of the hospital, but it really must hit some of the poorer families financialy.

[Catherine]

Good Morning OH. We went to the hospital to drop off a case for my MIL but did not expect to be able to see her. Got a ticket and only expected to stop five minutes to get to the ward and back down so we explained to the help desk what we were doing. They said it you have got a ticket from the kiosk you will have to pay for it doesnt matter how long you are five minutes or three hours. Cost us £1.70. Nice

[garden_serf]

I too think they have us by the s & c's with this phone system in hospital. Because you are not supposed to use your mobile while in the hospital it restricts your choice. I know that many people still do use their mobiles though, so I wonder how much they really do interfere with hospital equipment.

[richard p]

if the mobile phone signals are strong enough to upset equipment what are they doing to our brains when held to the ear.?.. the car parking is outragous, a high percentage of people using the carparks are either elderly on a fixed income or infirm so cant park elsewhere and walk. nearly all of the government system needs a good shake up and sort out, there are too many empires and flagship projects.
our local paper today is full of the local secondary school's plans to spend nearly 5 million pounds on buildings to start a sixth form , which it hasnt ever had....there is no shortage of post gcse places in the area and the infants and primary schools dont have any money for books or even replacing worn out carpets... yet money can be found by "county" for evermore complex computerised gimics.

our mp's are now asking for reduced rates of tax on old peoples investments, having dropped intrest rates to virtually nothing there will be nothing to pay tax on anyway so whats the point... just a few headlines in the papers?

time i stopped and got on doing something useful.

[Primrose]

I do think the level of car parking charges is disgraceful, targetting people when they are at one of the more vulnerable times in their lives. I think parking for patients should be free. And if you're a visiting, you can hardly arrive at a patient's bed and complaint to them that it's cost you £5 a hour to visit them, can you ?? I don't know what the answer is because a lot of hospitals do use the income to fund equipment and running costs. As for the use of mobile phones, I understand that some airlines are now thinking of allowing their use during flights, so they can't be too worried about safety and interference with equipment. I suspect it's just a smokescreen because hospitals have signed exclusive contracts with telephone suppliers who insist on this clause to safeguard their profits.

[Cider Boys]

Old herbacious kindly says he knows the cost of car parking goes towards the running of the hospital and likewise Primrose suggests it goes towards equipment etc. If only this was the case.

Most hospitals have let the running and charging of the car parks to private companies such as Q-Park. It is a blatant rip off to charge vulnerable people such extortionate prices, also the staff have to pay to park that work at the same hospitals.

I notice the Scottish parliament have banned this rip off but alas it remans in England.

As for moblile phones, at one time some medical electronic equipment was affected by early cellphones but this is not the case now. The hospitals again have agreed to rip off contracts with phone suppliers such as Patientline and sit back whilst these private companies charge whatever they like.
As for mobile phone signals interfering with equipment now, just look around your local hospital and count the number of mobile phone masts stuck around the site on the high buildings all generating high power electro magnetic waves. What hypocracy, if they were really concerned about radio waves causing problems then why do they encourage mobile phone companies to plant their equipment wherever they can? Money that's why. Again it's a rip off, most hospitals also use site radio and paging systems but ban cell phones because they can rip you off by forcing you to use providers such as Patientline to charge the vulnerable the most money.

What about the massive radio waves that exist in hospitals from their own electronic equipment such as diathermy,hyfrecators,x-ray,ultasound,scanners,MRI etc etc.

People should wake up and question this rip off cowboy monopoly mentality that this government presides over.

All the best

Barney

[Chantal]

Our local hospital charges for the car park, but it's a recent innovation and there is still a big row going on about it with a chance it will be revoked next year.

As for mobiles, they are allowed on the wards

[oldherbaceous]

Dear Barney, thanks for that information about the carparks being company run.

I'm going to try and get a little more information on the Milton Keynes set up, and will be very disappointed if they do this.

[lizzie]

Am having the same thing myself at the moment with my old mum being in hospital. The car parking isn't too bad........about £1.50 per visit and she does have one of those phone things but she uses her mobile instead if she wants to contact me for anything.

I personally think it's a diabolical liberty charging as you can never get a straight answer as to where the money is going to. If it was going to charity then fair enough, people may not mind paying. But if it's going to line some departments or fat cats pocket then I have a serious problem with that.

[snooky]

Part of my work involves looking after the services to two orthopaedic theatres and it doesn"t bother the surgeons and staff that there is a lot of electronic equipment around because there is always someone talking into a mobile phone,usually a surgeon!
Depending on which hospital you go to in this area of Wales it is either free or have to pay an exorbitant charge to park.Again,it depends on whether or not the hospital is under contract to a private parking company.

[Johnboy]

Hi Snooky,
Beat this! One of my friends husband was in intensive care just last week and sadly he passed away which was sad enough but because her car had been in the carpark for more than 24 hours it was clamped! So when she finally left the hospital at 5am she couldn't drive home and couldn't get the clamp removed until 11am. She called me and I drove the 25 miles to the hospital and picked her up and we sent her 6ft 6in son down in the morning to deal with the heartless bastards at the hospital.
They tried to make him pay for unclamping and he wasn't having any of that and eventually he had the car unclamped and no parking fees were levied.
Had that been a 5ft 1 inch woman I wonder if the results would have been the same!
JB.

[richard p]

hi jb, it cant be the first time this has happened in the hospital car park, fraid i would have have asked the local paper to meet me there , when i arrived with the generator and angle grinder....it allwats happens when you,re too busy to waste time making a fuss though. even hospital administraters must realise that such a situation is bound to arrise, how difficult would it be for them to arrange for one of their staff to have a clamp key available 24/7 for genuine cases. in our local hospital theres a carpark guy sat in a portacabin all night , aparently to open the barrier when the clever ticket machine system wont work even though youve just been in the cabin and handed over the contents of you wallet.