Phone rules: Copies of this poster have been put up in public hospitals to remind the public of the rules when using mobile phones.

The Hospital Authority has lifted the ban on using mobile phones in public hospitals to boost internal communications among healthcare professionals and offer the public greater convenience.

Healthcare workers and the public can use mobile phones anywhere within a public hospital, except in designated clinical areas including resuscitation areas in accident and emergency departments, delivery suites, operation theatres, as well as coronary care, electro diagnostic, high dependency, intensive care and neonatal intensive care units.

The effect of electromagnetic interference should be cut to a large extent as all medical equipment procured after 1994 complies with the electromagnetic compatibility standard.

Thorough electromagnetic interference tests on the medical equipment - ventilators, infusion pumps, defibrillators and anaesthesia machines - revealed that the use of mobile phones at a one-metre distance from the medical equipment is safe.

The authority urged the public to avoid causing nuisance to patients and affecting hospital services while using mobile phones in hospitals. The arrangement will be reviewed later this year.