no cell phones no personal phone calls at work

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just wanted your opinion on this... my friend who just graduated from nursing school just started a job where he cannot get personal phone calls or cannot bring his cell phone into the unit.. they are worried about pictures being taken ectra with the cell phone.. he has 6 kids and his wife has MS .. they told him if they catch him with a cell phone on the unit it is a write up .. it is a psych unit.. i understand the facility worries.. but to cut you off of all communication from family seems to much .. they told him they wrote up 2 nurses last week for bringing their cell phones in .. you cannot even use them on your break .. that is where they caught the nurses to write them up.. they also warned him they have cameras and voice recording all over the unit and will catch them if they are not on target with their job ... is this excessive control over a nurse about cell phones and personal calls for a psych unit.... seems like it to me... they use the cameras to see if the nurse really does her job and what she says besides the safety of the staff and patients...

what do you think ?? thank you in advance !!:yeah:

Specializes in RN, BSN, CHDN.

I am closing thread for cooling down and editing-if you have any concerns about this please contact the admin desk thank you

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Specializes in RN, BSN, CHDN.

Re-opened please stick to topic thank you

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Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.

Not being allowed to use your phone on break is overkill. As with everything else, it's the few people who want to repeatedly step over the line a little, then a little more, etc. who end up scr*wing the vast majority who are responsible users.

I'm an old fogey, too. But I would far rather have a text message causing my phone to vibrate in my pocket when I have an unstable family member in the hospital and ----really do not want to have to also leave co-workers in the lurch unless I have to (hence need for accurate timely info) than have a call answered by a receptionist or unit secretary who puts the person on hold to track me down, get hung up on, they call back, have a different person answer the phone, ask "where is nursel56?" answered by "I don't know, I'll look" get sidetracked, forget to look for me, etc. until maybe someone finally pages me while I am in the lady's room.

Sigh. Balance in all things and I apologize for the run-on sentence.

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We Americans have a tendency to take the colloquial saying "It's a Free Country", much too literally. Unfortunately, the workplace is not a democracy.

The typical corporate structure is more akin to a feudal system, with a High Lord dictating to a cadre of lesser Lords overseeing the vassals. A small owner business is in fact a dictatorship. Labor laws do exist to preserve the bill of rights, and regulatory bodies to protect the public trust, but the business of business is shall we say,..thier business.

Managing your household or personal affairs remotely is counterproductive to any bottom line, including health care. However, employers do need to walk a fine line here in remaining competitive in the marketplace for a limited pool of qualified workers.

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Specializes in ER/Ortho.

I am a single parent and work three, and sometimes four 12's. This means I leave my house at 5:20am, and do not get home until 9pm sometimes 4 days in a row. I now only work Monday through Friday so this means I have one weekday off. My oldest may need to go to a Dr's appointment that one day (and I need to call and make an appointment), or he may have test results back from when he went the week before. My younger son may have a teacher who needs to reach me about something, the mechanic may need to get my permission about something before continuing to work on my car. While these are not "someone died emergencies" they are important. I can't deal with these issues on weekends, before 5am or after 9pm. My youngest (just turning 15) gets himself up in the morning, goes to school, comes home, and stays by himself until I get home at 9pm. He's too old for daycare or a babysitter, but he does have situations from time to time where he needs to reach me. Can I have permission to do this?, How do I cook that? The toilet is overflowing what do I do? etc. Again not someone died emergencies, but he is still a child and all by himself so important. I think you have to take it into account that we don't work cozy 8 hour shifts, but are get there when its dark, and don't come home until after its dark again. I don't abuse my phone, rarely get a call, but its the piece of mind for my family, and myself that I could. If I do have to do business I find a private place, make it very brief, take care of it, and get back to work. If my phone vibrates and its not a family member or something I was expecting I need to take care of right away I do not call back until my day off. I NEVER talk or chat with friends at work even on break because I don't have time. I would give my patients terrible care if I did not have my phone because I would constantly be worried about my child at home, my life would be a mess because I would never be able to schedule my sons Dr's appointments (one day off so hard to schedule on the day you need to be there), be concerned the school couldn't reach me (when a problem arises calling back 4 days later is very bad parenting) etc. I am lucky I have a hospital and director who treats us like adults. I have only seen one nurse who abuses this kindess, but eventually they will tire of it and she will be in trouble not for using her cell phone, but for not doing her job.

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Where I work, a lot of the nurses live out of town...we are allowed to bring out cell phones to work and leave them in the breakroom. Our manager even bought a could of power strips so we can keep them charged...and they have a bunch of chargers for different brands of phones, so we can leave our own chargers at home.

We are not allowed to have our phones on us in any patient care area. We do, however sometimes text our providers and say things like, "Call Me!" So...they can go to the movie or church or whatever and not disturb anyone when we call them. We have a few nurses who use them when they probably shouldn't but they are few and far between.

I am not willing to leave my phone in my car. If my employer required it, I would leave it in my bag and turned off, but I don't want it in the car for twelve hours in sweltering heat or freezing cold.

As far as calls to the unit...are there employers that would really not let a call through if someone called and said, "Cotjockey's dad passed away...I need to talk to her now!" I get a little annoyed when coworkers get the, "Where is the peanut butter?" calls, but for the most part, we don't have that problem.

I get really annoyed when we are under a tornado warning or something and people are rushing to call their families instead of helping evacuate patients!

:-)

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Specializes in ER, Trauma.

Total deal breaker for me! I have a daughter in the Army, a combat medic in a war zone on the other side of the world. My cell phone stays with me 24/7. If they're not OK with it, I walk. Depending on their attitude and my whim, I may or may not drop a note to the local paper about it too.

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Well it has always been a rule not to have your cell phone on when I am at work, but I have had some situation where it has really come in handy. I used to be an aide and had a situation where a resident fell in their room and the resident only had a land line that was not in reach of where she was at. I had to call 911 from my cell phone to get someone to help. I had another instance happen in LTC were the bathroom door handle broken while I was inside the bathroom with the resident(we were locked in). Anyway, it would not have done any good to hit the bathroom call light because nobody would answer it but me :eek:, so I used my cell phone to contact the nurse's station to help the resident and I get out.

As many pp have said many people abuse their cell phones, but some of us use them only when needed.

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Specializes in Vascular Access Nurse.

We're allowed to have our cell phones on us, but not use in pt care areas. So if I'm in a pts room and feel it vibrate, I can excuse myself if possible and go into the break room and check the message.

Also, our facility recently purchased cell phones for all nursing units for the nurses to be available directly so we wouldn't have to run up and down the halls to answer phones. We still try to excuse ourselves from a pts room before answering the cellphone and are careful not to violate HIPPA.

Our families also can call into the office and leave a message or have us paged if needed.

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Specializes in Vascular Access Nurse.
and all you people take your battery out too! i hate microwaves flying around targeting and blocking my blood and plasma flow in my body.

bluetooth is the worst and almost a microwave weapon. people holding those up to their head are making their heart beat 20 bpm more (from blood brain barrier defense protection). you only have so many heart beats warranty!

for those who don't have a clue... some day.

ummm.....well you have the right to believe what you wish, but i'm keeping my phone in my pocket on vibrate, so you'll just have to stay away from me. oh, and i assume your facility hasn't yet gone to giving all the nurses cell phones while at work....not sure what you'll do then. luckily for you, though, the employers aren't using bluetooth capabilities, as the devices are too easily lost. :uhoh3:

i've read the scientific data, and it appears that you're overly concerned.

http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/risk/cellphones

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ummm.....well you have the right to believe what you wish, but i'm keeping my phone in my pocket on vibrate, so you'll just have to stay away from me. oh, and i assume your facility hasn't yet gone to giving all the nurses cell phones while at work....not sure what you'll do then. luckily for you, though, the employers aren't using bluetooth capabilities, as the devices are too easily lost. :uhoh3:

i've read the scientific data, and it appears that you're overly concerned.

http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/risk/cellphones

your "scientific data" from our cancer society of our government is from the same government who had the top 2 oil lobbyist as president and vp for 8 years making a mockery of our constitution? i did not see anything scientific about it. it just looked like lists of propaganda the gullible are asked to believe (which supports people's own short sighted goals).

when i was 5 years old and chemically sensitive, i knew cigarettes were bad news. 30 years later, people figured it out on their own. perception follows reality. living in a nazi style florida, you learn a lot living on the wrong side of the tracks to save money. and what you learn transpires over to the local and national corporations. laws are made by millionaires or billionaires in office to protect easy income for stupid products people have to buy: its the law. that's why the greed-fear stock market peaks out every 70 years: 1999, 1929, 1859; and society is in a perpetual depression for most of the time. its all planned to keep people down as low as possible, and not even aristotle or socrates could figure out how to do it as well (unless they planned the 1000 years of the dark ages in advance). its no big secret nor scare tactic. smell the coffee, buy some gages, and experiment on your own. because the big boys say so, does not make it so. to the contrary, you better start figuring out how to watch out for your own health, wealth, and safety!

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Specializes in NICU.

Baldee, pardon my impudence, but why are you talking about something that is relatively off topic and inflammatory on what is an otherwise interesting thread? If this issue concerns you so much, start your own thread. I'm sure you will get an interesting and informative discussion out of having your own thread about that.

Otherwise, everywhere I've worked as of yet (retail...) has had a no cell-phone policy on the floor--with the exception of being on break. That's reasonable. It would make sense to have one's employee have full attention to the job at hand. On the other hand, my dad is a PACU nurse (and formerly ICU/CCU/ER float) who would, occasionally, answer his cell phone while not on break. Usually though, I would only call to let him know I made it home safe after a long (most of the day) drive or for emergencies.

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