To be sick of seeing people smoking by no smoking signs by hospital entrances

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Usually one of these is an in-patient - in hospital gown, PJs or dressing gown. Plus has at least one of these a drip attached on a drip castor holder, catheter on a stand or on show and a nasal cannula around neck. They look very pale and weak whilst using what energy they have to clutch a cig in their hands.

Then see hospital staff. Both medical staff in uniform and other staff in normal clothes. Know that they are staff by lanyards, ID passes.

The former are probably in hospital due to smoking. The latter should lead a better example by walking outside the grounds to smoke.

Do you think the NHS and their trusts should do something about this?

I realise this is anecdotal, but it does make sense - a nurse once said to me that smokers tend to be mobile much more quickly after major surgery than non-smokers because they "need" to get up out of bed to go outside and smoke.

Some people will never recover from the illness they are in hospital for. So whether they smoke or not once they are terminal does it really matter?

My mother was a long term smoker. She started smoking at 11. She grew up in the 40s in an incredibly deprived area. She stopped when she was pregnant. But always went back to it. She did try many other times to stop. She was very addicted and she knew how bad it was. It was what killed her. Lung cancer. She knew it was her own fault. But she couldn’t stop. At the point she was in hospital being told she had months or maybe even weeks to live, any time she asked to go out for a cigarette I took her. What was the point in saying no? I took her as far away from the entrance as possible. But as others have said there are no smoking areas in hospitals at all now. And no I was not wheeling her through 3 car parks for 20 minutes to get off hospital grounds. We stood by the side of a car park where no one was.

Hospitals should provide smoking areas. Yes we all know it’s unhealthy. But people are going to smoke. Especially as others have pointed out when they are stressed or bereaved etc.

Our hospital has a sort of covered thing away from the entrance that staff and patients use.

Along with obesity but you wouldn’t demand they go off hospital grounds to have a sausage roll

Usually one of these is an in-patient - in hospital gown, PJs or dressing gown. Plus has at least one of these a drip attached on a drip castor holder, catheter on a stand or on show and a nasal cannula around neck. They look very pale and weak whilst using what energy they have to clutch a cig in their hands.

Such judgement. Regardless of why someone is in hospital (and smoking doesn’t cause every illness) what do you expect people to do? Addiction doesn’t stop when you are in hospital. My grandma smoked all her life. In her last year she was in and out of hospital for non smoking related issues. She was in for a couple of weeks at a time. You would have seen her in her gown, with a drip, out the front of the hospital having a cigarette. Stopping smoking for her, at her age was going to make zero difference to her life expectancy, not having a cigarette for days at a time made her anxious and miserable, it was all she could think about. Refusing to let her go outside because of some vague notion that anyone walking past and catching a breath of her second hand smoke was going to drop dead would be utterly cruel. And yes, she was toothless, because she had lost so much weight, her false teeth didn’t fit her any more and she didn’t have access to a dentist to get new ones. It was actually horrific how much dignity was taken from her in her final weeks/months.

NHS trusts should recognise people like this exist and provide somewhere for them to go to have a few minutes peace with a cigarette, when their world is in a very shitty place. Often you will see people around the building because it is the only place that has any shelter.

When I had my 1st miscarriage that I needed a D&C for I walked into the maternity hospital and 3 heavily pregnant women were outside smoking. Walking back out, other pregnant women also smoking. I just kept thinking do they not know how precious that little baby they are carrying inside them is.

With regards smoking on the premises, when I was pregnant and able to attend my regional hospital. There was always people smoking as I walked in, no one seemed to give a crap about blowing smoke at a pregnant woman.

There is a shelter about 100m from the doors which the staff and some patients do use. But there was always a few around the doors, inc some in wheel chairs who seemed to get wheeled down there for the day - to be fair they are probably near the end and not going to change. But the others could walk a few meters.

According to a consultant we spoke to, not having a cigarette for up to 48 hours before surgery wipes out the majority of that risk.

Smokers “cost” the NHS £2.5 billion annually (2% of the budget) Smokers contribute £8.7 billion annually to the exchequer through taxes. Fair to say smokers more than pay for themselves.

Oh yes i forgot about obesity the Nhs is "on it's knees" because of fat smokers!

This is why tobacco is taxed so high isn't it ?

It’s disgusting isn’t it.

I disagree with you.

Our local hospital has a smoking area, covered by one of those plastic bus shelter looking hubs. Its about 10foot away from the door, hardly far at all but away from the main entrance. People still use the main entrance canopy to smoke.

ETA oops wrong quote replied to

Our hospital is exactly the same. Literally a cloud of smoke immediately outside the main doors. Right next to multiple no smoking signs. It's horrible and quite pathetic I think. All they have to do is cross the road and there's ample space next to the carpark. There is also a shelter round the corner, no idea why they don't use it.

DS and I were in hospital for a week after his birth last summer - I had an infection and he was recovering from an infection and hypothermia.

The maternity ward was directly above the main entrance to the hospital, on the first floor. There was a constant stream of smokers outside the main entrance. Our room was sweltering (28 degrees) but we couldn't open the windows as the cigarette smoke would waft up. I have difficult to control asthma - with cigarette smoke as a main trigger - and poor DS was so tiny and vulnerable. When they eventually discharged us we had to walk through a cloud of cigarette smoke. We had to ask our uber driver to collect us from the Sainsbury's car park next door otherwise we'd have been waiting with the smokers. DH also wanted me out of there before I gave them a piece of my hormone fuelled mind.

The selfishness of people who would smoke directly by non smoking signs, underneath a maternity ward still makes me angry.

Staff who are smokers have a right to take smoking breaks and they may well have very stressful jobs. Patients and their loved ones are having a tough time. As an ex-smoker I know how people need a cigarette when they are feeling stressed. Stop being judgemental and leave them be.

What do you want to be done and who do you want to do it?

Security and staff can and do tell people that it is a no smoking area - as the signs clearly display.

They get

'I'm just finishing mate' 'Yeah, yeah I'm going' at the very best - many other ruder responses are available.

Some people will move away momentarily and then move back.

At best people can be pushed further away from the hospital site - which is better for visitors not having to endure the smoky entrance, but can be more problematic when they fall over and no one knows where they are (although there's usually a specific area people go to)

Hospital staff can and do offer smoking cessation help - they can offer nicotine patches in hospital to help but not everyone wants this.

It is not judgmental to not want to breathe in smoke and vape fumes, especially when you're pregnant, asthmatic, ill or stressed yourself. I don't care if others smoke but they should be considerate and move away from the doors and others peoples windows so they aren't forcing them to breathe it in.

They can exercise their rights a bit further from the door. Few people are in hospital for fun. Smokers can walk a bit further away so they're not making someone else's hard day even harder. So selfish.

I am not saying its the main cause, but could be a few % of the reasons. If everyone was a non smoker waiting, it could shave a week off waiting times.

My kid has an asthma attack when exposed to cigarette smoke. This has cost the NHS quite a lot of money as some dickhead smoked outside Birmingham children's hospital so it fucked up her diagnosis as she couldn't breathe and needed her meds so the tests didn't work for asthma. She needed lots more appointments.

Smoking outside the entrance to railway stations cost the NHS a day in hospital on a nebuliser. Three GP appointments. Increased prescriptions for preventatives.

Hate the inconsiderate bastards.

Would be much better to put a smoking hut away from the entrance so other people can get in and out.

If someone grabbed someone round the neck and squeezed that would be a crime. Allowing your smoke to drift across the entrance of public buildings and squeezing someone's lungs closed has the same effect but isn't .

This post has me divided. I am about to write something boringly long-winded; maybe it's cathartic for me to do so.

People smoking around a hospital are likely going through intense periods of stress, illness or trauma. Whether that be themselves or witnessing a loved one suffering. It is not a time when giving up their addiction can be addressed, any efforts to do so will be completely ignored. At best, a hospital could provide a smoking area as far away from any entrance doors as possible. Surely a fire escape somewhere could be repurposed? The hospital I refer to throughout this thread does not have any permitted smoking areas.

I've smoked for 40 years, having grown up in a smoking household in the 70's. For as long as it's been drummed into our population that smoking really is bad for you, I've never given up. I've known for years that I should, but on a deeper level, I just haven't wanted to.

To you, as a non-smoker, it's a filthy habit that is causing harm to not only the consumer, but potentially to you as well. To me, it's an enjoyable experience. It actually tastes AND smells nice to me. And something that tastes and feels so pleasurable surely can't be as bad for you as they say? Having smoked for so long, it's just a part of me and who I am. I listen and hear all the warnings about the harm it does to people, but it doesn't register because the part of me that is riddled with nicotine addiction is really, really good at ignoring it - and it doesn't apply to me. I hate to concede and say that nicotine addiction is as powerful as any other, but I know it is, as I can't ever imagine being able to do even start doing it, let alone succeed.

I have had some dark, dark periods in my life and endured some tragic events, unfortunately, more so than the average person might have experienced. No excuses, but there was never a question of me giving up smoking. Some days, sitting outdoors by myself with only a cigarette for company, was the only good thing that happened during the day. A lot of this took place in hospital grounds, because that's where some of the traumatic events were unfolding. Some were before the days that smoking was 'banned' from hospital grounds, some have taken place during. It made no difference to me, I was always going to smoke because I had to, it was 'part of who I am' after all. The cost of smoking became an issue, there were lots of things I couldn't afford, but I could also afford tobacco.

Eighteen months ago, a niggly irritation with my health turned into a gigantic life and limb-threatening problem. I was admitted to hospital and treated for sepsis. As soon as I could sit in a wheelchair, I was off outside at every opportunity for a cigarette. The threat of losing a limb terrified me, so my need for cigarettes was stronger than ever. The hospital doesn't have a smoking area but it does have plenty of large signs advising it is against the law to smoke anywhere in the grounds. Most patients/visitors lean against these signs to smoke. This being 2023 smokers were by then regarded as dangerous as lepers and subjected to looks varying from disdainful glances to abject disgust. For all I love smoking, I also love to be loved, so I would try to hide myself away from the main entrance where I wouldn't be subjected to the death stares. I may smoke, but that doesn't mean I'm devoid of feelings - I do know that people would see me smoking outside a hospital in my pyjamas and dressing gown and think 'she's the one costing the NHS unnecessary money' or 'she's blocking a bed all because she's a smoker', or 'she's put herself in here' (that one was likely true).

I was told by my consultant that smoking was singularly the biggest cause of my diagnosed arterial disease and gangrenous limb. Major surgery was the only chance of my limb being saved, but it may not be successful. I was scheduled for surgery as soon as the sepsis was clear. When my DH came to visit that afternoon, my consultant and I told him the prognosis and I quietly handed him my cigarettes and lighter and instructed him to throw them away on the way out.

A year and a half has passed and I still have the salvaged limb, but I've continue to have problems with it. The team treating me at hospital are amazing and they keep fighting to save the limb. I have to accept that it's a battle we may lose eventually, and I acknowledge almost daily that this is probably no more than I deserve.

The most important milestone in my opinion though, is that I haven't so much as looked at a cigarette since that day. I am now 'on the other team' and am one of the hundreds of people who have to regularly walk through that fug of smoke at the hospital entrance. I sometimes think 'oh give us a sneaky puff', but mostly I think how glad I am that I valued my life enough to make that giant leap. It was ridiculously easy to give up in the end. But I'm not sure I ever would have done without that huge fright. Of course, if I had my time all over, I wouldn't ever touch a cigarette - who would, really? But I don't beat myself up over all those years of smoking, it really is an addiction. And like most addictions, it makes the user ignorant beyond recognition.

I don't feel anger and disgust when I pass that person 'with no teeth and tattoos' smoking outside the hospital. I feel sorry that they have no incentive to turn their life around. One thing is almost certain, you won't see those people there indefinitely. You nearly didn't see me for too much longer, after all.

I think this post raises some interesting points and articulates some of my own feelings. I'm not (and have never been) a smoker, but I do appreciate that for those who smoke, stressful situations will only increase the "need" and what's more stressful than being in hospital.

That said, it doesn't really address a big part of the problem for me. I'd prefer everyone gave up smoking - as they'd likely have better health outcomes. But that isn't going to happen. That said, smokers should be aware that leaning up against the "no smoking" sign to have your fag break is really rude. I don't think people should feel ashamed of smoking, but they should feel ashamed of ignoring signage and creating an unpleasant atmosphere at the hospital entrance!

Because it makes other people very ill and puts them in hospital!

I can see why so many are irritated by it. As a former smoker I feel a little sympathy with those who look like they may be enjoying the last cigarettes they may ever have.

If everyone reduced their consumption of processed foods, particularly meat, walked everywhere and stopped drinking alcohol the NHS would be far less stretched. With younger patients at least. However, no matter how clean your lifestyle, however little risk of accident you take, eventually the human body starts to break down and medical intervention is required. So all you'd be doing really is pushing the problem down the road, and instead of beds blocked by unhealthy people in their 60s, they'd be blocked by formerly healthy people in their 90s, who would otherwise not have lived that long. Smoking is a huge health risk for sure, but its one behaviour amongst many that causes illness and the high early mortality rates will mean over a lifetime the smoker may work out cheaper.

@Smokersside
Thank you for sharing that. Sounds like you’ve had a tough few years, well done on binning the cigs and wish you well.