AIBU to complain to the hospital?

[DetectivePotato]

Ok I am one of those annoying ex smokers. But my hospital has big signs up, promoting their smoking shelters and going on about how it is a non smoking site, apart from designated areas.

Everytime I have been up there recently, I have had to walk through a fair few people stood right at the entrance lighting up. I don't want to walk through the fumes at the best of times, particularly when I am pregnant and have DS with my. One person stood there was a nurse.

It has been everytime I have been there so should I complain? Would you bother?

no i wouldnt bother, its like, what, 3 seconds out of your whole day that you walk through someone elses smoke.

get over it

YANBU to complain, especially if one was staff who should know better. Probably not the resources in the NHS to employ people to walk around telling smokers to move to the designated area though. Shame that people aren't more considerate.

Yes you absolutely should complain. This is one of my pet hates. Disgusting, selfish and lazy.

It just makes me 'laugh' that there are HUGE signs at the doors to the hospital going on about it not being a smoking site and there are the smokers stood against it.

YANBU. It may only be 3 seconds, but you end up stinking for the rest of the day! Yes, fair enough, smokers need to go somewhere, but the entrance of a hospital ffs?

yanbu to complain about staff smoking outside designated areas. a bit more difficult with members of the public though..

Yes complain - it's a revolting and unhealthy habit and the nurse who was doing so should be disciplined for smoking in an uncovered uniform.

It is very irritating, we used to have to walk through uni through a cloud of smoke outside the hospital. Patients with medical equipment attached. Sigh
Their choice though I suppose, I don't see what the hospital can really do. I'd rather they spent time and money treating people than making sure no one smokes near the entrance tbh.

I learnt to hold my breath, think you might just have to do the same (If you take a deep breath first, then breath out slowly and constantly as you walk through the smoke, you usually don't get the smell in your nose afterwards).

YANBU and I have complained about similar issues (supermaket) it did get stopped a no smoking sign came up around there and they had to go elsewhere

Complain YANBU,3 seconds is all it takes to smell like an ashtray. This is what smokers don't understand, they are so used to the smell that they don't notice it but it stinks!

There is no way a Nurse would be smoking at the entrance. There are so few nurses on the general wards (usually only one or two RNs per shift) that they cannot leave the ward.

The wards are mostly staffed with health care assistants (totally different than a Nurse) and since they have no real responsibility they are able to often go out for smoke breaks.

Plus these people work 14 hour shifts and deserve a break.

Don't agree with them smoking at the entrance however.

Complain - the hospital need to do more to enforce the smoking ban. Your complaint forces someone to think about how they are doing.

I transferred to hospital in the very late stages of labour and had to walk through a long covered walkway up to entrance with smokers on either side of me. Charming. Yeah, complain. Security should be moving them to the smoking areas.

Mind you it was the smoking shelter round the back of that hospital that inspired me to stop smoking several years earlier. That smoking shelter was directly outside the morgue ...

Nurse/Healthcare assistant, who cares. I didn't go and look at her badge. I saw her uniform.

Smoking shelter outside the morgue!! What a good idea.

Your complaint may be very welcome. Working in NHS management I know there is no more powerful catalyst.

complain

I work in a hospital and walking through the fog is horrid.

YANBU. Yuck.

I agree that it's not nice walking through a wall of smoke, but it's a hard one to police.

Some of those smokers will be dealing with bad news, perhaps they have lost a loved one, or they have been given a bad diagnosis. The lasttthing on their mind will be whether their smoke inconveniences other people.

I've spoken to hospital porters about it and they hate telling people to move for this very reason.

I would complain. There's not a lot they can do about randomers, as it would involve going out about 200 times a day, but their own staff should know better

Most hospitals have given up on the shelters and have made the entire site no smoking, so that's why staff/patients have to go to the entrance as they are officially not on site.

Oh, and the person who said that no way would a registered nurse be smoking at the entrance, errrr wrong. I'm an RGN ( don't work in a hospital anymore but loads of friends do ) and believe me Registered nurses are puffing along with the rest of them.

There is an enforcer at our hospital. They can issue fixed penalty notices (not sure how many get issued but it does seem to be working). I used to hate walking through the entrance - there is a tannoy announcement on repeat, "This is a fresh air garden" while surrounded by smokers.

"Nurse/Healthcare assistant, who cares. I didn't go and look at her badge. I saw her uniform.

Smoking shelter outside the morgue!! What a good idea."

There is a huge difference between Nurses and health care assistants. Nurses are professionals and you shouldn't just use the term "Nurse" to describe every member of staff you see in a hospital. Very few of them are actually Nurses thanks to recruitment freezes etc.

The wards are a nightmare because management is able to use the publics' ignorance to replace Nurses with untrained carers who cannot do the same jobs. People just assume that anyone in a uniform caring for patients is some kind of Nurse and this is wrong and it is killing patients.

This is more of a public health crisis than smoking outside the hospital is so I just thought that I would hijack your thread. Sorry about that.

The other point is that Nurses are getting a really bad reputation at the moment because visitors are noticing the bad behaviour of the untrained unprofessional staff and labeling these people as "Nurses". Nurse is a protected title given to someone who has completed an intense 3 or 4 year educational program and is registered with the NMC and licensed to practice. It is not a throw around term that you use to describe anyone you see hanging around in an NHS uniform.

In March my 15mth DS had an empyema and pneumonia and after 11 days in hospital we were allowed to take him home as long as we came back twice a day for his IV antibiotics. This meant that twice a day we had to walk him through a fog of smoke when he had a very serious lung condition and it made me furious that the hospital did nothing about this. If they're not going to enforce the smoking ban they may as well remove it and take all the signs down as at the moment they are just doing it to tick a box.