to be really annoyed with the smokers outside the hospital?

[bumbleymummy]

There are no smoking signs everywhere and there is an allocated smoking area right opposite the entrance to the hospital but there were about 10 people all smoking right outside the hospital doors. Everyone has to walk past them inhaling their smoke. WIBU to say something to them? Point them in the direction of the smoking area? I have a feeling I'd be old to f-off but why should they be allowed to stand there unchallenged?

I am finding very difficult to understand how it would significantly disadvantage your asthmatic child to be rushed in your arms past smokers in the hospital doorway.

Then thank yourself lucky you haven't got a child with severe asthma for whom cigarette smoke is a trigger at the best of times.

I am finding it very difficult to understand how it would significantly disadvantage a smoker to move a short distance away from the door?

I don't smoke and never have sirzy. I find breathing cigarette smoke and having my clothes and skin and hair stinking and possibly singed by fag butts very unpleasant. I have complained to smokers when they've annoyed me - mostly by placing their cigarette by me so as not to inconvenience their own companions .

But smokers clustering outside doorways don't annoy me because I can get past them in an instant - that includes hospitals.

If I was rushing an asthmatic person to hospital, the damage would have presumably already been done. Otherwise we'd have stayed at home. So the 10 seconds or less carrying the person who was having an asthmatic episode over the threshold of A&E wouldn't register with me.

It might register as a significant and aggravating factor with the doctor treating the patient. So when you took your asthmatic child to hospital, did the admitting house officer note the smokers outside the door as an aggravating factor to your child's condition?

Because he or she should have done if it was a significant factor. If he or she didn't and you think it was then I think you should make a formal complaint. Did you do that?

I'm forced to cluck at people in hospital gowns with IV drips who are standing outside the hospital smoking.

I reserve my ire for people who smoke while walking along crowded city streets. It's very hard to escape the smoke in this circumstance (without changing your route) and I get tetchy about the possibility of being burnt.

If it is anything like the hospital where I work, they were probably all nurses having a quick fag.

I think what pisses off so many of us is that we are not saying don't smoke. We would prefer you walk a but further to those seated, sheltered areas, so it's win win. I totally understand why a person would desperately need a nicotine fix and I would never judge the need for a ciggie but why why why by the doorway of a hospital when there is another option?

Unfortunately, many people go on the defence and assume we want to shoot all smokers FFS. The smoking shelter is for smoking. The entrance is for entering and leaving.

limitedperiod most hospitals do provide smoking areas but ban staff from smoking anywhere on site.

Out of interest, do you ever break any rules whatsoever, op?

'Some smokers are just totally oblivious of other people and have no idea of how much their smoke annoys non smokers.'

lol. You know what I hate? Ever since smoking carriages have been disbanded on trains, there is the rancid smell of oranges and fruit in some carriages.

Bloody fruit eaters are totally oblivious of other people and have no idea of how much their fruit consumption annoys others.

In the absense of respiratory problems I still think the average healthy person should cut them some slack. It's likely they are going through a shit time, and if all you've to do is fleetingly catch a whiff - nah, too churlish to make much of it

I have brain tumour that is being managed. It’s at the back of my brain, just by my right ear. It’s benign. That doesn’t mean it’s not dangerous; it just isn’t going to kill me yet.

When it was first diagnosed, 22 years ago, smoking was disapproved of but allowed by the doctors and nurses - fools that they were .

I didn’t smoke, but those who did, clustered on the small balconies of the wards.

Some people had tumours front and centre on their brains which may or may not have been malignant. Whatever the prognosis, their surgery meant that they had a dressing shoved up both nostrils or the roof of their mouths with the outside of it looking like a thick cotton moustache.

So if they were smokers, they’d come in from the balcony with their nose-pieces smouldering and they couldn’t smell it.

Did I care: no. Did I laugh: oh yeah. Do I hope they’re still alive like me? What do you think?

When I did that just now I wasn't being nasty about my medical staff. They were right in my case and I'm sure they were right in everyone's - even the evil smokers.

That's interesting limmited, I have a benign tumour in my right to parietal lobe, it was first diagnosed 23 years ago.

It's coming out on Monday.

In the absense of respiratory problems I still think the average healthy person should cut them some slack. It's likely they are going through a shit time, and if all you've to do is fleetingly catch a whiff - nah, too churlish to make much of it

This ^^ absolutely.

Far too much pearl clutching goes on about the 'danger' of passive smoking, in the massive outdoors.

It gets really silly at times, though ime it's mainly just another Mumsnet thing.

And before anyone assumes I'm a smoker, I'm not.

We did say. We said "making us smoke outside is a daft idea" but did anyone listen? They were so thrilled to get one over on the horrible smokers that they didn't think it through.

This is one of those 'be careful what you wish for' moments.

I actually stopped for reasons of my own, but if I hadn't it would amuse me to see the expressions on people's faces.

Really? You're struggling to understand why a lungful of cigarette smoke might disadvantage a child that's struggling to breathe? you can't understand why further irritating already inflamed airways and lungs might be a bad thing?

Or is it that you're so determined to be totally cool with smoking that you've lost any logical thought process?

Funnily enough when they immediately put my DS on oxygen and rushed him through to be put on a nebuliser they were more interested in raising his oxygen stats to a safe level rather than noting whether there were smokers at the door.

I work in a heart & lung hospital......it makes me smile to see the smokers clutching their chest drains in one hand & their fag in the other.
They know what they are doing. As a non-smoker I don't understand their addiction, but I will not refuse them my compassion or care.

its not just about people walking past though - smoking at the doors/in the doorway/right at the entrance allows smoke to travel into the building eg through ducts/air conditioning etc

A childrens hospital I know has a major problem with smokers congregating in areas where the smoke is channelled up into the ward and single rooms with some of the sickest kids eg Leukaemia patients, those undergoing chemo and bone marrow transplants. Poor design might be part of it and that should be dealt with (the hospital is being replaced atm) but its crap that those currently requiring treatment are exposed to smoke when a change in smokers behaviour could sort the problem. Hopefully the next place will have better design

live and let live

When I read the thread title I immediately thought of :o

round them up and shoot them

Again, I am not criticising then for smoking. It's where they are doing it - in an area that is plastered with no smoking signs when there is a smoking area straight across from them. It's about 10-12 paces away from where they are. The smoke does drift through to the lobby. Would you be defending them if they lit up inside the hospital doors too?

These weren't people in wheelchairs hooked up to drips either.

No smoking at all in the grounds of our local hospital, so it's about a five hundred yard walk on to a busy main road. It's quite common to see people with drips, wheelchairs and in their pjs/dressing gowns having a smoke stood on the side of the road.

It's stupid - during potentially the darkest and most depressing times they begrudge someone a cigerette.