Can I disable outgoing calls, especially to 911 on mom’s iPhone? She has dementia.

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Level 1

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Can I disable outgoing calls, especially to 911 on mom’s iPhone? She has dementia.

My 75 year old mother is in a nursing home now, for past two months. She’s starting to call 911 for petty things, and it’s not going well. Cops and ambulance showing up for her insane petty things often. The nursing home is NOT happy.

She’s also been doing this for over a year, even while she lived alone at a little rental house. She started calling 911 almost daily to send someone out to adjust her thermostat.

Can I disable 911? She is completely abusing it, as she does with about everything, and she’s likely gonna get kicked out of the nursing home. (Taking her into our house is not an option).

Any ideas? I’d prefer to only disable 911, but also disabling all outgoing calls would also be nice. She calls everyone in the middle of the night. If she wants to talk to someone she can text them and request they call her.

What can I do to stop her calling 911? She’s never been mentally normal, especially now.

iPhone 13 Pro

Posted on Jan 13, 2024 5:36 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

KiltedTim

Level 10

224,760 points

Jan 13, 2024 5:49 AM in response to Weisel77

No. You can not disable outgoing calls to 911. The is illegal. By law, every cell phone, even one without a SIM or cellular service plan, must be able to call and connect to 911 emergency services.

Edit. Take away the phone. Get her an iPad mini or something that she can use to make FaceTime and FaceTime audio calls to young other family with iDevices. Or get her something like an amazon echo that can remain stationary in her room but be used to communicate with family. I work in IT at a nursing home. Lots of families go through this. A device that's not a phone is the answer. This is assuming of course that the facility has wifi, which most do these days.

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Answer 2

Weisel77 Author

Level 1

15 points

Jan 13, 2024 6:55 AM in response to KiltedTim

Thank you. I think that is the answer. She has been (voluntarily) bed ridden for 25 years. She does absolutely nothing except play on her phone. YouTube, shopping, texting, etc. She never took to tablets because they are “too heavy”. But she will have to adjust, and I can get her a small one.

I appreciate the sound advice. Thank you again.

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Can I disable outgoing calls, especially to 911 on mom’s iPhone? She has dementia.

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