Private hospital bans staff from using iPhones

Employees of a private hospital in Chongqing municipality are banned from using iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus cell phones in their office, and have been warned that they risk losing their jobs if they are caught doing so, Chongqing Economic Times reported on Thursday.

A 30-year-old man who uses the pseudonym "Wuyu" posted online that he bought his wife, a nurse in the hospital's gynecology department, an iPhone 7 before the hospital announced the ban on Tuesday.

The notice said that "to encourage thrift and reject extravagance, any violator of this code of conduct will be deprived of qualification for annual performance awards; those who purchase these products beyond their capability will be counseled out".

The director of the hospital, surnamed Li, 57, said the decision was made to support domestic products.

"Our hospital won't force employees not to use them; what we do is to list this code of conduct among one of the standards for performance appraisals," Li said.

Duan Qin, a lawyer at Chongqing Luoshu Law Office, said it is employees' right to choose the brand and model of their cell phones, adding that if they were fired for this, they could claim for compensation from the hospital, according to the Labor Contract Law.

Gu Jingwen contributed to this story.