A recent report has highlighted an important issue involving night time noise pollution at hospital. It might sound peculiar as hospitals are generally considered to be a quiet zone and as per law, there cannot be any time of noise in the nearby area of a hospital. But the noise that is in question is not from outside but from the electronic equipment, cell phones, alarms, intercoms and other equipment that makes it difficult for a patient to have a sound sleep at night.

There are many patients who on many occasions have been arguing on the fact that although there are norms put in place that restrict the noise surrounding the hospital, there has been no study done into the in-house noise that goes in the premises of the hospital. It is the background noise that is prevalent in the hospital which can sometimes go up to 80dB, about as loud as a chainsaw.

Jeremy Ackerman from Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, who is also a member of the international Healthcare Acoustics Research Team, put the overall issue in prospective by saying, “We don't necessarily just have to make the hospital quieter. We need to be particularly careful to avoid designing into systems and into the architecture very disruptive sounds”.