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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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:
Islandlady · 22/05/2011 09:45

Trixy

So I suppose you will have no problem in enjoying your nice glass of wine in a hot pub in summer whilst us smokers will be able to sit in the pub garden catching the rays and generally having a good time.

Or are you one of the hypcritical people like a few in our pub that whinge and whine you cant go out side on a sunny day as all the smokers are out there.

In that case its fuck off and swelter

trixymalixy · 22/05/2011 09:53

No, because the smoke is not contained so doesn't have the same effect and You can always move to the upwind part of the area. I can enjoy the rays too.

Sorry to disappoint you.

RealEyesRealiseRealLies · 22/05/2011 10:30

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

usualsuspect · 22/05/2011 10:44

I love standing outside having a fag with all the other evil smokers

thefirstMrsDeVere · 22/05/2011 10:55

When DD was on the children's oncology ward at the Middlesex groups of adults would smoke on the landing below and in the stair well at the side of the ward.

The children's cancer ward therefore stunk of smoke.

That was nice Hmm

Fucking fuckers.

I am not anti anti smoking. I think its stupid but I love a fag when I have had a drink. Its horrible when people congregate outside hosptials though and there is always a mess and it stinks.

Smoking outside a pub/club whatever is one thing but right outside the hospital is another.

I do understand that a hospital is somewhere where a person is very likely to need a fag due to stress though. So I dont look at everyone like they are evil. Not now. I probably did a few years back. When things were very awful for us.

It did massively piss me off when I had to wheel DD past people flicking ash and stinking horribly when she was so sick. I wanted to punch them all.

Original poster
Sistermoondance · 22/05/2011 18:57

Blimey.... Well, I have calmed down a bit and came back on here to check out responses... Totally gobsmacked!

In retrospect I still think it is bad- and can't believe how people thought I was embellishing the situation. Look outside any hospital main entrance and I can assure you there will be lots of sick people just trying to get some fresh air or waiting for lifts! However, I do think that the should be a few benches and a shelter, a little further from the door (not too far, just enough that people don't have to walk through the smoke or can sit without smelling it) where there are no no smoking signs. Ie not endorsing but that way people could just be asked to move over to stand / sit with other smokers.

However, I was so busy being stressed myself, that i didnt spare a thought for what the other people could be going through. I may not like it but will try and be more understanding.

But the guy who came on here and called us a bunch of c*s is being totally abusive. It really doesn't help the case for smokers at all- just made me think he was inconsiderate and unreasonable and there is no way I would listen to the opinion of someone like that!

OP posts:
StarlightMcKenzie · 22/05/2011 18:59

'What about the poor old lady with cancer next to me- she couldn't get up and walk away like I did!'

Perhaps she was a smoker too, but can't walk the 2 mile round trip out of the hospital grounds and back again!?

StarlightMcKenzie · 22/05/2011 19:10

My smoking mum, sitting in a smoking carriage on a train, offered MY seat (that was prebooked) to a pregnant woman who prompty accepted and then brerated my mum for lighting up as she was pregnant.

Non-smokers are so bloody self-centered!!

whiteflame · 22/05/2011 19:23

How very rude of your husband Spiderlegs!!

BlackSwan · 22/05/2011 20:12

YANBU. Noticed this outside children's hosp recently - couldn't believe it.

thefirstMrsDeVere · 22/05/2011 20:18

Its pretty stressful having a child in hosptial so its not that suprising really.

I dont like it. I wish people wouldnt do it. I dont think there is an excuse for standing right around the entrance. Its horrible.

But hospitals are stressful places so if you smoke you are going to do it in that situation arent you?

I have never seen it outside Great Ormond Street though. Probably because they have a sort of tunnel goint up to the main doors (building work) so it sort of funnels people out onto the street. The street is narrow and busy . People tend to light up as they are walking off.

I think there are ways of designing the environment so it discourages huddles of smokers directly outside an entrance?

K999 · 22/05/2011 20:22

Sometimes the designated smoking areas are beside the entrances.....

BlackSwan · 22/05/2011 20:31

MrsDeVere- it was at GOSH that I saw it this past week.

CrystalQueen · 22/05/2011 20:32

There is an "enforcer" employed at our hospital, in addition to a continuous tannoy announcement about the "Fresh Air Garden" at the entrance. Seems to have bugger all effect as far as I can see.

ilovesprouts · 22/05/2011 20:34

at our local hosp.you see them in wheelchairs and drips in having a fag

thefirstMrsDeVere · 22/05/2011 20:41

Where abouts? In that tunnel thingy?

I know people light up but I have never seen them congregate like I have at other hospitals.

I have felt like it but I wouldnt do it.

I remember when I used to visit mum, dad or grands in hosptial and they would be smoking in bed

LineRunner · 22/05/2011 20:52

Round my way you see teachers and pupils congregated round school gates smoking. Sometimes they manage to drag themselves round a corner in a futile attempt at discretion, but the fag ends always get hurled onto the pavement.

trixymalixy · 23/05/2011 13:17

interesting

spiderslegs · 26/05/2011 00:17

Really - what is it with you lot & smoking??

Do you just hate people?

Or people with habits you don't approve of?

Or do you all really just enjoy hoiking your tits up with your elbows, wrinkling your noses up & spewing out disapproval??

REALLY - what is it you hate???

Jey's I see some sights that would meld my eyelids shut - but I just let people get on with it.

I hear music & conversation that makes my brain want to stop working.

I've eaten food that causes reverse peristalsis.

I've read books that make me wish the publishing industry out of existence (i fact - that's a lie - I've read the first sentence of books that make me wish such).

I would never stop anyone indulging in any of those things - if that's the way they want to rot their minds, bodies, ears, eyes.......

So why the fags???

I'd say X-Factor is cumulatively more harmful.

claretandcheese · 26/05/2011 00:46

Because smoke is unpleasant to breathe in when you don't choose to. No more, no less.
It's not hating, or judging or anything else. Just keep it away from me, thanks. Indulge as much as you like it's not a moral issue and I don't care what you do to your body, that's entirely up to you.

Oh and my tits are far too small to hoik anywhere let alone up to my elbows!

spiderslegs · 26/05/2011 00:55

Then hold your breath.

claretandcheese · 26/05/2011 01:11

Does holding your breath make your tits bigger?

kakapo · 26/05/2011 05:54

On the flip side spiderlegs, what is it with you not understanding that people don't want to breathe/get covered in smoke? The argument isn't about taking away your choice to smoke, it is about allowing other people their choice to not breathe smoke - about not imposing your choice on other people.

All of the other things you have listed have no damaging health effects on anyone but the person doing them.

I really don't see what is so hard to fathom about this.

Al0uiseG · 26/05/2011 07:17

Smokers stink. Even when they think they don't.

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