if you smoke, would you smoke outside the hospital, in your nightwear?

[waikikamookau]

cos I am shocked whenever I walk by, virtually every day, with all and sundry sitting in their pyjamas.
have they no shame.
what I would do? get some proper clothes on for god's sake,

[flanbase]

thurlow it comes down to what is a safe limit for something. All our actions have a risk to them and life is a risk itself. Smoking is never good for the health. There is no safe limit or any possible safety guidelines to follow. If you choose to smoke then imho you should pay more for your healthcare. It's not a popular thing to say but it's my opinion. You made a choice to smoke which will be doing you no good and passive smoke is not good for the health of those around you. If all smokers paid an extra amount for the nhs then it would make people think twice before making the free choice to start to smoke. If people who drove recklessly could always get their cars fixed at no extra cost because everyone paid the same car insurance it would be an outcry.

[Thurlow]

Yes, but someone taking part in a dangerous sport is deliberately putting themselves at risk. Take rugby - a great sport, but god knows how many rugby players end up in A&E every weekend with dislocated shoulders and broken noses.

I might smoke, but I don't do anything else that puts me at a higher than average risk of needing NHS treatment. I'm not overweight, I don't drink more than the guidelines, I don't take part in any sports or activities that have a risk of injury... So how are you going to measure that? How on earth can you pick one arbitary thing that is bad for you and say that that is the one legal thing that people who do should get less NHS treatment for? And how are you going to decide which of their medical problems is actually caused by smoking? I repeatedly suffer sinus problems - one argument says they could be exacerbated by smoking, but of course they are also caused by hayfever - should I not get any treatment for that?

You need to actually think through your arguments before coming out with a statement like that.

[KhaosandKalamity]

Is it legal to smoke on hospital grounds in the UK? NZ hospitals seem to be almost constructed of no smoking signs, and so help you god if you disobey. But we do get people in pajamas walking across the road to smoke. Being a smoker something about being stuck inside in a stressful situation where you can't smoke drives me insane with the desire for a ciggy, but the nurses and doctors treat you like the devil if you ask if you can go out for one.

[flanbase]

To get past a smoker standing smoking depends on the location. Up a flight of stairs is going to be tougher than a flat stretch. The amount I breathe in depends on the air movement and again on location for eg if by a door or going in through an open window. It is very hard to hold my breathe as other people can and sometime impossible really. Every day I have this issue and I have my routes planned as best I can. I would like smoking in public to be banned. I can't think of a comparison to help explain. It's like someone with a nut allergy being unable to predict or get away fast enough from them & not being able to refuse them. If that helps to give it a context. The nut allergy person has the moment to ask on nuts being in foods/ products and to avoid though and people respect this. For smoke it's the smoker who has the legal right and not myself to avoid it as I never know where a smoker will be. It's not the perfect comparison and no offence to nut allergy people/families as I know it's a very simplified version of having this allergy

[kawliga]

flan, how long does it actually take you to walk past a smoker, and how much smoke do you breathe in while you're walking past, and how often are you in a situation where there's no way you can find a different route without going past the smoker?

Just calling for some perspective here, we often momentarily encounter hazards in this life. I don't agree that people should be banned from doing anything that might pose a hazard to me if I happen to walk past.

[flanbase]

typing - dangerous sports & drinking to be done at different times

[flanbase]

ladymary - I agree smoking should be banned.
for the poster who said on my wearing a mask in pollution - I have to and it's very difficult as it's hard to breath in it as it gets hot and humid on my face. Wearing this and going through smoke adds another dimension to feeling blocked.
On all the comments on doing dangerous sports and drinking I would say it's a choice but can be done in reference to safety guidelines. As long as the chute opens fine and safety followed, as long as in nhs guidelines for alcohol. With smoking there is no safe area to refer to.

[LarvalFormOfOddSock]

But getting back to the OP. No, I had no shame. Why would you when you want to be dead?

[LarvalFormOfOddSock]

Thank you.

[flanbase]

Thanks for the link Larval. A quote from it "The failure of smoking prevention and treatment in this group is largely down to an acceptance of smoking as a "normal behaviour" and is an indictment on public health and clinical services, it said." There has to be the support needed and access to stopping smoking as for people without mh. I'm sorry to hear that your gp didn't help you as they should have.

[LarvalFormOfOddSock]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21956316

Please read it.

[LarvalFormOfOddSock]

flanbase. Thank you, but I am. I quit some time before I became pregnant. My GP offered no help whatsoever. It was deemed that it would add to my anxieties.

[flanbase]

I've ever come across the assumption that MH patients smoke

[LarvalFormOfOddSock]

Well said SummerRain.

[flanbase]

larval - your gp will be able to help on your being smoke free.

[LarvalFormOfOddSock]

It's just assumed that MH patients smoke. If they can't even begin to treat our MH problems, why are they going to bother about smoking?

We SHOULD be offered CBT. We SHOULD have choice over where we're treated. We SHOULD be treated with respect. We SHOULD we SHOULD we SHOULD, but we're not.

And that's not just those with MH issues.

[SummerRainIsADistantMemory]

My friend broke his back when he was 24. He spent 6 weeks strapped to a hospital bed unable to move, staring out a window day in day out going through nicotine withdrawal on top of everything else. When he was starting to regain his mobility one of his only pleasures was shuffling to the door of the hospital a couple of times a day to have a fag.

If anyone had seriously suggested he should get dressed to do so I would happily have smacked them on his behalf.

You can't possibly have idea what those patients standing outside the hospitalare dealing with, how sick or injured they are. What they are wearing is of no importance whatsoever and anyone who judges them based on a 5 second snapshot of their life is quite frankly an idiot of the highest order.

[flanbase]

kaliga - I am not in the state of health to be able to hold my breath as long as someone with normal lungs. Next time you have to walk outside first run for one minute or so on the spot at full pace util you are out of breathe and your heart is going faster than normal for you, then hold your nose and breathe only through a straw in your mouth. Now walk by a smoker and you will experience a much better version of what it's like for me. Live and let live I wish could apply to not just the smoker.

[ladyMaryQuiteContrary]

Your GP should have a 'stop smoking' campaign or something similar, Larval. //smokefree.nhs.uk

[TantrumsAndBalloons]

flan you cannot know your DCs won't ever try a cigarette.

Sorry but you can't. You can hope they dont, you can educate them. You can't know for sure.

[LarvalFormOfOddSock]

LadyMary, I was told on a second occasion that if I voluntarily stayed overnight on the MH ward that they would provide me with nicotine patches. They didn't. It was a ruse to get me to stay voluntarily. I have never ever been offered nicotine patches or anything of the sort.

[ladyMaryQuiteContrary]

They should ban it all-together, flan.

[kawliga]

Exactly how much damage will it do walking through 3 seconds of smoke once in a blue moon?
Or are you at the hospital going through the huge cloud of smoke every hour, every day for years?

This. I don't smoke, but I also don't go into ridiculous hysterics if I have to spend 3 seconds walking past a smoker. If you want fresh air then find somewhere with fresh air to perch yourself. If the smoker is smoking at the only available passage-way maybe hold your breath as you go past? You won't actually drop dead if you hold your breath for all of 3 seconds. I do this sometimes when I walk past buses spewing out noxious fumes that I really don't want to breath in.

Live and let live.

[flanbase]

LadyMary - you don't offend with what you say. People that have health have such chance and I see teenagers smoking and I want to say stop now in case you regret it later or the passive smoking affects your friends. I've never smoked and it was chance I didn't smoke and now I say thank goodness as my breathing would be in a much worse state. My kids wont smoke and all those here that will say wait and see on this I can reply already and say I know they wont for sure.