I have been plagued by withheld telephone numbers. This is due to the fact that my community support team insist on withholding their numbers. I have no problem with that but I get real stressed about answering withheld numbers. Couldn’t they email me or something instead.
This has got so bad that I have unplugged all my phones and am refusing to leave the house.
They should have phone numbers that they use specifically to speak with patients. This way they don’t have to worry about patients calling them all the time and disrupting their personal lives, but patients can also recognize these special professional numbers when receiving a phone call. If your professionals don’t use this sort of setup, then they are not very bright.
They all get work phones to use in office hours. Previously my CPN used to give me his number but the general policy is different now - no numbers given out. Just a single landline number for the office secretary.
I don’t think this is very fair. The population of patients these workers support can get very freaked out by unusual numbers. Kinda feels like a block in the route of care.
I don’t pick up anonymous #'s either. When I was at an intensive outpatient program, they would call from a withheld number and they said it was for “privacy purposes.” I believed them because some of my case managers called me from their cell phones and didn’t turn off their caller id.
I used to get a call every day from random people wanting an elevator repair service! It made me soooo paranoid. I was like, "oh yea, your elevator, huh? who sent you?" lol Luckily, those calls tapered off after a few years.
When i was in hospital totally psychotic and thinking i will go to hell i got a call from the number “666”… no joke… just 666 without any other number. Ofcourse i didnt pick up because i didnt want to talk, but now i honestly wouldve loved to know who the hell has this kind of number and why they were calling me.