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]

I'm just saying what I think. The tax payers pay for nhs. It costs billions. People who smoke are doing an activity that ruins their health & that of others caught in the passive smoke.

[pictish]

Flanbase - tell me true - how many people have you met that have had their 'health ruined' by walking past a smoker in a doorway?
How many?

[Shakey1500]

So say what you think on my question of "do you think morbidly obese folk with no medical reason for being overweight should also be denied treatment" then.

[ladyMaryQuiteContrary]

You know, if you look up there's wards with sick patients in them. That's where the smoke goes; in through the windows so the other patients can breathe the smoke in. They can't move. One person lights up, then just as they bugger off someone else lights up. Look around; that's why there's no smoking signs everywhere. It's not rocket science!

[Thurlow]

But there are dozens of activities that ruin people's health. Most of them, like smoking, are legal. Smoking at least pays money into the system. Base jumping doesn't. Hell, even rugby doesn't.

According to the HM Treasury, smoking revenue in 2011/12 was around £12bn. A recent ASH publication put the cost to the NHS at around £5bn.

Easy maths - and the reason why smoking won't be criminalised for a very, very long time.

[blondefriend]

My ds spent a lot of time in SCBU and then Great Ormond Street. I'm afraid I hated the sight of pregnant women smoking outside the entrance. Why was my child so poorly when I did everything right and they could get away with it? My post-natal, hormonal state meant that just looking at them made me burst into tears. It just wasn't fair!

Outside GOSH a lot of mothers stand in their pjs smoking. I would prefer it if they moved a bit down the road but these are parents whose children are going through a hell most people will never, ever imagine. Their mums are in pjs despite not being ill themselves. They may have been up all night helping nurses administer drugs, holding their child's hand as they scream in pain, cuddled a baby as it died, cuddled a fellow mother who has just watched their child die.

However watching 2 women chatting and smoking accompanied by a child on an oxygen cylinder will always be a memory that shocked me completely.

[TheChaoGoesMu]

Don't you think smokers are tax payers flanbase? Who also pay a huge amount of tax on each packet of fags they smoke?

[flanbase]

Pictish -There is no safe level of passive smoking

[pictish]

How many?

[flanbase]

The tax smokers pay goes into the system and it would be interesting to see the reduction in revenue from this compared to the increase in better health & therefore reduced stress on the nhs

[TantrumsAndBalloons]

Caught in passive smoke?

3 seconds walking past a smoker.

Please get a grip.

[flanbase]

Pitish - You are asking how many people are health effected by the passive smoke they walk through? my answer is everyone of them

[crashdoll]

3 seconds for my friend with Cystic Fibrosis who desperately needs a lung transport is too much.

[pictish]

Health ruined you said.
How many?

[VerySmallSqueak]

flanbase if you are so anxious about this dreadful passive smoking danger posed by passing people outdoors I would watch your blood pressure and stress levels!

Relax a bit.Really.

[ladyMaryQuiteContrary]

Surely any revenue from the tax on cigarettes is wiped out by the cost to the NHS/benefits agency/employers? If 'Bob' gets cancer from smoking then it's going to cost more to treat him and pay his benefits whilst he's off work, then there's his employer who's paid for his cigarette breaks for the past 10 years. People who don't smoke don't get the equivalent of a cigarette break. 5 mins every 1 hours, once a day, 5 days a week, 48 weeks a year for x years will mount up.

[Shakey1500]

I wouldn't hold your breath (!) pictish on getting an answer. Seems flanbase is ignoring you and me both.

[Sirzy]

Seriously, it's a bloody hospital. Have some compassion, there are ill people there. It's not like it's the supermarket. Tolerance both ways would not go amiss. It makes fuck all difference to my medical condition but someone with a lung condition may feel differently....

Exactly.

I don't care if people want to smoke but I wish they would at least make a small amount of effort not to do it right infront of the doors where people have no choice to walk through it. Cigarette smoke is a trigger for my 3 year olds asthma, his asthma is severe enough that he has had close on 30 trips to hospital so yes I would rather not have to walk him through smoke on the way into A and E when he is in the middle of an attack.

[Thurlow]

Well, considering most of the estimates take in to account smoking-related illness, there figures really do speak for themselves.

You haven't answered all the questions about what other illnesses and people shouldn't be treated.

(FWIW, I was that smoker outsider the hospital but everyone saying people should walk as far away from windows and doors is completely right)

[pictish]

Ok. I'll answer for you. None. That's how many. You don't know of a single person who has had their health ruined by walking past a smoker in a doorway.

You're just opening your mouth and letting your stomach rumble.

[Salmotrutta]

The maths is straightforward.

Smokers pay in about £10 billion and cost around £3 billion.

We are subsidising others with our taxes.

Plus, we mostly die off before we start costing money in geriatric care etc.

It's a win- win.

[ladyMaryQuiteContrary]

What makes your right to smoke more important than someone's right to breathe clean air, pictish?

[flanbase]

pictish -my health is damaged by being in passive smoke. The smallest amount has devistating effects

[Thurlow]

Very true about the geriatric care, salmotrutta

[Salmotrutta]

Oh, and I'd never smoke around any doorway. I don't think that's fair.