beware! sick people in the hospital.

ok ok, i ought to have put in two inverted comas for the sick in the heading above – beware! ‘sick’ people in the hospital.

who are these ‘sick’ people? the voyeurs! they secretly took pictures of female patients in various state of undress or answering nature’s call in bed. thanks to them, visitors to hospitals are not allowed to use handphones.

you see the one major disadvantage of a camera phone? secretly taking pictures was also one of the reason many people were against the idea of allowing school children to use handphones in school. er… i shouldn’t blame the phone that comes with a camera… it is those ‘sick’ people out there, that should be blamed! they are abusing modern technology! oh well, what to do, it takes all kind of people to make up the world… or as someone would say “live with it”.

now that handphones will be banned from the hospital, i wonder will people make some hue and cry over the ban? there will be many pros and cons again coming up as regards to having handphones in the hospital. oh but wait, the director general of health, datuk dr ismail merican said that the ban is for use of handphones inside the wards only. well, this means then a visitor when making or answering phone calls, have to step outside the wards… but to where? is it ok to just go to the lobby area and make/answer the calls?

some people would have argue that the use of handphone in hospital is of the utmost importance as they need to update others on the condition of their loved ones who are in the hospital, or they need to have their phones on for some urgent information coming from outside the hospital.

personally, whenever i am in a hospital, i always put my phone to silent mode and i try not to use the phone to make calls. when calls do come in, no, i don’t answer the phone right in front of the patient’s bed.

UPDATED 2/1/2006 01:12:52 AM: one TE cheah from the malaysian medical resources wrote a good piece on this issue. he rightly said that:
this voyeuristic saga is testament to the lack of enforcement of rules in hospitals due to the fact that our top administrators are trying to adopt an open policy to please visitors.

NST editorial yesterday also rightly said that a total ban on the use of handphone in the hospital is not the answer… that is, the editor also thinks like te cheah, that that might be lack of enforcement on the hospital part.

related links:
hospital staffs all for bans on cell phones.
KL hospital bans handphones.