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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To feel annoyed with smokers outside the hospital entrance

199 replies

Sistermoondance · 19/05/2011 15:53

I am sitting outside the hospital entrance waiting to be picked up. Thoroughly annoyed as they rescheduled my appointment without telling me.

And everywhere I look there are no smoking signs- on the benches and on the Walls saying that smoking is prohibited. And all I can smell is smoke from about 10 people- either patients or visitors. Can these people not read!!! And if I can smell it I am breathing it in and so are the other poor patients who've come out for fresh air!

I haven't said anything as I don't want to start a row, but I am seething. Either these people are visitors in which case they could walk somewhere where people are not sitting, or they re patients in which case going without a fag would do them good!

Grrrrrrrrrrrrr

OP posts:

aldiwhore · 19/05/2011 17:01

Ah well I'll get sympathy points for being on a diet but I'll be a social pariah for not trying to give up smoking at present.

I wouldn't smoke at the entrance of the hospital though, it just seems inappropriate.

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 19/05/2011 17:01

Smokers get my sympathy, Worra. I'm an ex-smoker, 5 years now, but I do remember what it was like. It is a hard addiction to quit and some people just like smoking... why shouldn't they?

I dislike the anti-smoking witch-hunts, I really do. Every smoker I know is very considerate of non-smokers and they really seem apologetic about their habit, which I don't think they need to be.

Smokers need somewhere to smoke and personally, I think the tobacco companies should provide or at least subsidise smoking shelters, goodness knows smokers pay enough in taxes over the years. I also think that the Government should either hand over the duty to the NHS or shut its big, fat trap about what smokers cost the NHS. You can't whinge about smokers and then keep the taxes generated from smoking.

But as far as smoking outside hospitals is concerned, I think the segment of people who should stop doing it are the doctors and nurses. I know many of them smoke but they shouldn't be doing it in uniform, it really doesn't help to convince kids not to start smoking.

trixymalixy · 19/05/2011 17:03

You're not getting my point worra. Most addiction programs advocate complete abstinence, that's just not physically possible with a food addiction, therefore making it a harder addiction to overcome.

worraliberty · 19/05/2011 17:08

I agree about the non smoking in uniform if you're a nurse or a doctor! Then again, as you say...they should be given somewhere else to smoke.

The thing about smoking shelters is, tobacco companies would probably be flamed (scuse the pun!) if they built them and the government can't be seen to be encouraging smoking even though they do very nicely out of the tax.

We're already seeing a massive increase in taxing of petrol and anything car related...can you imagine how they're going to make up the massive shortfall when everyone eventually does give up cos they can no longer afford to smoke?

All the moaners will end up begging people to take it up again

mosschops30 · 19/05/2011 17:08

In the days when we had designated smoking rooms tjis wouldnt have been a ptoblem.
I dont smoke anymore but i do feel for those recieving bad news or stressed for whatever reason, my nhs trust has just banned smoking on the site, probsbly spent loads with all the new signs and banners i wish they would have built a shelter for all the smokers to go to.

How simple can it be, smokers happy, non smokers happy!

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 19/05/2011 17:13

trixy... I get your point, but all addictions need a certain amount of willpower to break them, don't they? Food addictions, granted it's tough. You're surrounded by the stuff and you have to eat to live.

There are some people who suffer from Praeder Willi syndrome who really cannot stop eating, anything - food, soap, paper, whatever it is. Food addiction isn't the same as that or anything as drastic. In many cases it is down to people, for whatever reason, choosing to eat either the wrong thing or too much of it too often. That's a choice.

One of my friends has a tendency to overdo it if she's cooking. She now puts things straight into portions and straight in the freezer. The day's food she has out on a tray so that she knows she can eat all that, but no more.

I think some people make excuses for why they do or don't do something - I do it myself. Fair enough, but accept it for what it is - an excuse.

whitechocolatebuttons · 19/05/2011 17:13

YANBU.

Its not nice.

Always wonder why smokers have to do it so near to the doorways, and they know they are going to have to smoke outside, so why do they not put coats on?
A very eminent cancer hospital near Liverpool has a permanent crowd (though of changing clientele, Obvs!) of smokers in night attire wheeling IVs around with them by its entrance. first time i saw them I thought it was some sort of protest.

worraliberty · 19/05/2011 17:13

You're not getting my point worra. Most addiction programs advocate complete abstinence, that's just not physically possible with a food addiction, therefore making it a harder addiction to overcome

That's an assumption though. Addictions are very personal things to individuals. You can't possibly say one is harder to overcome than another because it depends on the addict and their personal strength, support and willpower.

Just because you need food to survive, doesn't mean you have to buy shit and eat it...not if you're serious about kicking the addiction. A food addict would have to show the same strength in passing a takeaway shop for example, that a smoker would have to show in passing a tobacco shop.

Yes, the food addict would be also tempted in a supermarket when buying healthy food...but supermarkets also sell cigarettes so to both of them, temptation is everywhere.

idratherbeboarding · 19/05/2011 17:17

YANBU. I'm asthmatic and if someone stands next to me at a bus stop smoking a cigarette it can bring on an attack, which could lead to me being hospitalised. I find it incredibly selfish that some people don't consider how unpleasant it is for others to breathe in their second hand carcinogenic chemicals.

AnonymousBird · 19/05/2011 17:22

When I went to give birth nearly 7 years ago, there were several women in labour puffing outside the maternity entrance.

YANBU.

trixymalixy · 19/05/2011 17:23

Smoking is a choice, people for some reason take it up knowing full well the likelihood is that they will become addicted.

Eating is a necessity of life. People didnt choose to become addicted in the same way smokers have. That's why there's more empathy for food addiction.

I really don't think it's valid to compare the two in the way you are trying to do.

worraliberty · 19/05/2011 17:29

I'm sorry but I disagree with that too trixy. Despite the warnings, most people feel they can handle smoking and they won't become addicted like 'everyone else'.

Ask any smoker who can't seem to give up and I'm sure they'll tell you they had no idea how hard it really is.

Yes eating is a necessity of life...but eating too much/being greedy/not exercising is not. People can see themselves getting fat and yet they choose not to do anything about it/feel unable to.

Smokers can feel the damage they're doing to themselves too and yet they choose not to do anything about it/feel unable to.

I think fat people get more sympathy on MN because there are more overweight posters than smokers...so they can empathise more.

trixymalixy · 19/05/2011 17:34

Oh come on worra, people don't really think that they'll be the only person in the history of smoking that finds it easy to give up.

worraliberty · 19/05/2011 17:36

trixy they do if they're young. Try telling a teenager anything and expecting them to actually think you're right and they're wrong.

BluddyMoFo · 19/05/2011 17:37

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

trixymalixy · 19/05/2011 17:37

Food is totally different to smoking as you have to judge how much is enough, some people just don't have the capacity to get it right. It's much easier to know that you can't have any cigarettes at all if you want to give up.

And if you disagree with that then you really are just arguing black is White for the sake of it.

worraliberty · 19/05/2011 17:42

Bluddymofo

Sorry trixy but your assumption that if someone disagrees with what you say, they're arguing for the sake of it did make me laugh. I might end all my arguments with that and fold my arms at the same time

We'll have to agree to disagree. I don't think when it comes to addictions that one addict should get more or less sympathy than another because one's fat and one smokes.

aldiwhore · 19/05/2011 17:43

Hi Five for BloodyMoFo

When I started smoking I didn't know what addiction was. When I quit during my pregnancies, it was easy, I thought I'd cracked it. Doh. I'm only just realising how hard it is to crack the addiction, and I'm not ready just yet.

Have to say though, that dieting is JUST as hard. I like crap food, I have to abstain if I want to be thin. I like smoking, but I will have to abstain if I want clean lungs.

Yes we need food, but we don't need crap food, and its too much crap food that makes some of us fat. Portion control on healthy food is also hard and that does differ from smoking as there are no healthy cigarettes.

SnuffleTurtle153 · 19/05/2011 17:46

I wish hospitals and other public places would implement an area for 'Judgemental Sneery People With Sticks Up Their Bums - No Smoking, Drinking, Laughing, Fatness or Bottle Feeding Allowed'.

I'd much prefer to not have to mingle with them

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 19/05/2011 17:47

YY... teens think they're invincible and that they can do anything. I think that most can't equate to the smoking warnings because 50 years old, 40, hell even 30 years old is years and years away.

JamieAgain · 19/05/2011 17:48

A smoking room would be better. It gives a chance for smokers to experience how unpleasant cigarette smoke and litter is for the rest of us

Dancergirl · 19/05/2011 17:49

I'm quite surprised at my reaction to this as I am strongly anti-smoking.

But YABU

Where are patients supposed to smoke then? Are you going to make them walk 5 miles up the road?? We all know smoking is bad for your health etc but some patients are really sick and having a fag might be one of their only pleasures.

aldiwhore · 19/05/2011 17:53

Exactly, I thought that any warnings would be realised like so faaaaar in the future I'd be dead anyway from rock n roll or something.

Most people start smoking in their teens, by the time they're adults or parents or 30, their addiction is years old and part of them. I had the kids, thought 'smoking really isn't something I want their mum to do', so I hid. Then I hit 33 and decided I wanted to learn to run (properly, not like phoebe in Friends) and thought "smoking will make me slow", now I am scared of dying of cancer, only NOW, because I'm starting to get to the age the packets warned me about. Its illogical and stupid, and as I LIKE smoking bloody annoying.

ibbydibby · 19/05/2011 17:55

Was coming walking out of main hospital entrance a couple of months ago and a lady in a wheelchair with both hands heavily bandaged asked me if I would get a cigarette out of her bag and light it for her. I refused, pointing to the "no smoking on hospital grounds" sign. I have felt guilty ever since and wished I had done it for her. Anyone else been in this situation?

trixymalixy · 19/05/2011 18:07

Was tempted to end my post with " end of" as that usually dies the job in arguments.

We'll have to agree to disagree then.

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