Talking of telephony within a hospital means raising the question of electromagnetic fields. After recalling certain conclusions by the World Health Organisation and the Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks, Xavier Dekeuleneer, CSR Manager – EMF Belgacom Group, pointed out that the Belgian standard (0.02 W/kg) defined in 2001 was four times stricter than the WHO standard, while the latter took account of a Specific Absorption rate that is 50 times stricter than the recognised risk limit (4 W/kg). Today, in Belgium, this question is no longer judged as a health matter, but as an environmental issue: it has therefore been regionalised and rethought. There is no longer any reference to W/kg, but to V/m. From now on there is a Walloon standard and a different Brussels norm. Flanders has not defined its own yet. In Wallonia, the new standard is 3V/m per antenna. It is stricter in Brussels: 3V/m, whatever the number of antennas involved. In comparison, the Belgian standard in 2001 was 20.6 V/m. Today the Region of Brussels-Capital applies the lowest radiation norms in all of Europe. As regards mobile phones, the Council of the European Union has defined that the Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) has to be lower than 2W/kg. This information must be specified from now on by the various manufacturers concerned. Belgacom cites it for each of the telephones that it sells.
Electromagnetic immunity standards for medical devices
Medical devices are subject to the international electromagnetic immunity standard IEC 60601-1-2. This standard is included as a reference in European Directive 2004/108/EC . This Directive was transposed into Belgian law through a Royal Decree dated 28/02/2007.
This standard defines the immunity thresholds for all electrical devices (non-medical and medical non-vital) as well as for vital medical devices. The immunity threshold for vital medical devices is 10 V/m. For all other devices, this threshold is 3 V/m. These values must be respected in the frequency band ranging from 26 MHz to 2.5 GHz.
Exposure of medical devices to waves from GSM mobile phones
A distance of 2 metres must be maintained for non-vital devices, as the electrical field will be lower than 3 V/m beyond this.
Maintaining a minimum distance of 60 cm between a mobile phone and vital medical equipment is recommended. Beyond this distance, the intensity of the electrical field will systematically be lower than 10 V/m. As this is the case, the IEC60601-1-2 standard introduces a safety factor into the calculation of the safety distance to be respected and recommends applying the safety distance for the limit value of 3 V/m, i.e. 2 metres, in the case concerning us.
For information purposes, recent vital devices have an immunity that is much higher than 10 V/m. For example, pacemaker manufacturers recommend not using the telephone at less than 15 cm from the device.
