Major Danish hospitals declare emergency after widespread phone system failure

Two of Denmark’s largest hospitals have activated emergency protocols after a critical failure in their staff alarm phone systems, Danish broadcaster DR reports.

Regionshospitalet Gødstrup in Herning confirmed Wednesday that 1,254 staff alarm phones—used for emergency alerts such as cardiac arrests and patient alarms—have stopped functioning. The hospital has now shifted to emergency operations, with staff relying on backup phones for communication.

“This could involve cardiac arrest calls or patient alarms,” said Mikkel Seneca, the hospital’s medical director. He added that the outage has forced staff to manually monitor screens for vital signs like blood pressure and pulse, diverting personnel from other tasks.

The failure follows a similar incident at Aarhus University Hospital, where 550 alarm phones stopped working on Tuesday. Psychiatric staff there were issued whistles to summon help in emergencies.

Seneca expects the phones to be restored next week but stressed that patient care has not been compromised. “We’ve managed to continue operations without disruption, which we’re very relieved about,” he said.

Ascom, the supplier of the affected phones, acknowledged the issue in a statement to DR, calling it an “unprecedented” complication during a routine technical update. The company said it is working closely with the hospitals to resolve the problem.