Speakerphone use in shared wards new health scourge: Dave Mollard

Being in hospital is painful enough without hearing the inane utterances of people you don’t know projected out of their phones, writes Dave Mollard. Photo / 123RF

OPINION

I was visiting a loved one in hospital recently. She was in a shared ward, the kind where the thin veil of a curtain is the only privacy one gets from the snoring, coughing and other unsavoury bodily sounds emanating from all six inmates.

In my view there is plenty to dislike about Palmerston North Regional Hospital from the ageing infrastructure, taupe-painted walls, a visual explosion of warning notices and trucking magazines from 2003. But our hospital is full of wonderful humans doing God’s work with people at their lowest.

There is a new scourge that is infecting our hospitals, causing harm to anyone close by. It is not a virus or a new bacteria, it’s much worse than that, it’s people talking on speakerphone in shared wards.

Being in hospital is painful enough without hearing the inane utterances of people you don’t know projected out of their phones. Once I was aware of it, I tried not to listen as the tinny sound blasted out over those thin curtains but I could not block it out.

I usually don’t whinge in my column. As a general rule I have a positive outlook on life, but this week I have decided to do some self-therapy by unloading on to you, my unpaid reader, about all the little things that annoy me like people using speakerphone mode in public.

I get frustrated with people blocking our roundabouts because they don’t check the exit is clear before entering.

I feel embarrassed getting stuck in the wrong lane at the traffic lights because the left-turn-only road marking was covered by the cars queueing ahead of me.

I get annoyed with people parking in disabled car parks who are not displaying the correct tag.

I feel like my integrity is questioned when I hold my Eftpos card up to the payWave and it tells me too many cards were detected, despite the fact I only carry one card.

I feel grossed out by people not cleaning up after their dog on my grass verge.

People driving too fast on Main St annoy me, people driving too slow on Main St annoy me as well.

Life is not perfect and these small inconveniences to my zen are manageable, I guess.

On a completely different subject, the Palmerston North Volunteer Fire Brigade has had a hectic season. We have attended about 40 fires this year already, up from about 15 for the entire last year. The Super El Nino has meant the vegetation out towards the coast is tinder dry. While it has cooled down a bit, the fire risk is still higher than normal so please be careful out there.

Dave Mollard is a Palmerston North community worker and social commentator.