My dad is in the hospital right now. My mom (who pretty much never turns her phone on anyway ) forgot her charger at home when she went to stay with him, and the hospital strongly discourages patients from bringing laptops or other communication devices.

So the only way to contact either of them is to call the room phone, with its un-mutable ring, not knowing if my dad might be sleeping or just not up to talking on the phone. And although at the moment he seems to be too tired and weak to keep up with the news, or friends outside his most intimate circle, anyway, he's almost totally cut off from the outside world.

The hospital he's at seems to be top-notch in many ways, but they need to at least move into the 20th century as far as patient communications. Moving into the 21st century is probably too much to ask for.