Smoking at hospitals

[iwentothemfmountaintop]

For context, I work at a hospital.

I’m sat waiting for a lift home and a woman, obviously a patient, has come and sat next to me and lit up a cigarette. She’s facing towards me each time she exhales her smoke. We’re right under a smoke free site sign!

AIBU or should there be security making sure this type of thing doesn’t happen? For all she knows I’m a patient here for a respiratory illness, having cigarette smoke blown on me! It’s absolutely vile, it’s making me feel sick and giving me a headache, but there’s nowhere else for me to wait for my lift.

The walk way from the road where buses drop you off to main building has raised flower beds with seating along with no smoking signs. Guess what happens there?

Our hospital has a no smoking policy anywhere on site.

I’m sure recovery from surgery or illness takes longer if you continue to smoke. Those who I used to know who smoked took ages to recover from colds and had a boot on for their broken ankle. Two friends broke their ankles, almost a copycat break. The smoker had their boot on a week longer.

So because of recovery times are slower. How many surgeries have been cancelled due to no beds as the ones that continue to smoke are blocking them?

Our local hospital took the shelter away, so then there were staff, patients and visitors smoking nearer the entrance.

They’ve now put back the shelter, which is away from entrances, windows etc.

One of my lingering memories from giving birth (and most were a bit traumatic) was that the midwife stank of fags. As lovely as she was, that's really bad when I think about it now.

That won’t work. You can’t punish someone into giving up an addiction. They know it’s bad for them, they know if would be better if they stopped. If they aren’t ready, they won’t be able to do it.

But it would also be much safer and more pleasant for those of us who don’t smoke. The ONS says it’s 9.8% of the adult population which smokes. Why are we indulging a small minority in a way which is actively unhealthy for everyone else?

Of course it would - but that doesn’t mean that putting rules in place like you suggest will work. They will just be ignored. Much better to accept that smokers are going to smoke and create designated pleasant spaces for them to do so that are accessible. You’re not “rewarding bad behaviour” you’re containing the problem.

Airports in Europe have fully enclosed smoking pods - something like that close to the entrance would be far more likely to be used and have the added benefit of containing the passive smoke.

At one hospital I worked in the staff were asked to confront smokers in the hospital grounds and explain the no-smoking policy. Staff complained that they weren’t willing to put themselves at risk of abuse from the smokers…and I don’t blame them!

This. If they don’t have a smoking area then obviously people will smoke anywhere. They aren’t going to give up for a sign.

Whether you like it or not, it isn't illegal to smoke tobacco outdoors or in a private indoor location. All this talk of punishing smokers - they aren't committing an offence. Hospitals can ask them not to smoke on their grounds but no one is breaking the law by disobeying that.

If there's a designated area, especially with shelter, people will use it but if there isn't, people are going to smoke anywhere - where it's sheltered, where they're least likely to be 'told off', where they can physically get to if they have limited mobility.

The issue you have with hospitals is that people can be stuck in them for a long time. It isn't like spending an afternoon at, say, a park that has a complete ban on smoking. People can go without for a few hours but not over a period of days where there might not be an end in sight.

Does everything have to be illegal?

Can people just not be inconsiderate cunts and take a few more steps so they're not lighting up at the entrance to a building where really sick and dying people are coming in and out?

If you have to smoke, go away. Well away from people who aren't smoking. Away from the areas marked as No Smoking. Away from doors, windows, vents that might drag the stink back inside. Be a decent human, even if there's no law explicitly telling you to.

Yes, they absolutely can, but only if they are given somewhere to go.

I listed the places around hospitals people should avoid - isn't literally all of the rest of the outdoors 'somewhere to go'?

Last year when DH had heart surgery I arrived to visit him and a patient was so desperate to smoke his carer brought him in his bed to an area full of no smoking notices and he was smoking. DH agreed it was hard to actually give up when I told him.The whole area was full of people smoking.

local hospital (not uk)
put in accessible smoking booths near the main entrance. enclosed space with seating and enough space for wheelchairs.

smokers still smoke under the entrance roof because 'it stinks in there'...

inpatient smokers get offered nicotin patches or gums, but the uptake is not very high.

Any hospital I have worked in has been a no smoking site….no smoking areas at all.

In 2005 I needed jabs for a trip abroad, so I went to a hospital in Tokyo, where I lived, and was astounded to see not only a smoking room but vending machines as well. Afterwards I discovered that Japan Tobacco actually owned the hospital.

Smokers will not do that unless there is a designated smoking area/shelter provided. That's it. Hospital grounds are no different to any other open air space in the land. It's merely an arbitrary "rule" someone made up to indicate that smoking is not allowed on "campus", but failed to provide an area well away from everyone else to do this.

That has been their downfall, so smokers will smoke anywhere outside, rules or not. That is the reality.

smokers will smoke anywhere outside, rules or not. That is the reality.

But why does it have to be the reality? Is there some component of tobacco smoke that inhibits consideration for others?

The best wtf sight I ever saw was right next to the automatic entrance doors to the massive hospital where I live. A man hooked up to a drip, in a wheelchair with a recently amputated leg - he was smoking a pipe! I mean I was sort of admiring of his commitment to continue to enjoy tobacco products. I long to know how his health journey panned out.

I think you’re looking this the wrong way. You’re looking it through the lens of a non-smoker who does not have an addiction.

When people are addicted, it makes them more selfish. This is a fact. The addicted brain needs to get that fix over and above anything else.

In hospital situations you are often:

• on a short break from work
• waiting to be called back in
• unwell and unable to walk long distances

All of these things make it impractical to walk often 15 minutes or so to fully leave the site. A nurse on a 20 minute tea break doesn’t have the time.

That's where people reveal the kind of human they are, I suppose.

Are they going to put up with some inconvenience to themselves to avoid doing something they know they're not meant to and that could actually harm other people?

Or will they say 'Fuck em, I'll do what I want'?

There's plenty of people in the second group and I don't think they even realise that most of the benefits they enjoy living in a society are down to the fact that most people are still the first group.

The balance seems to be tipping, though.

I don't think I'm looking at it the wrong way at all.

You are. You’re looking at it through the lens of someone who isn’t addicted. I know people tend to hate on smokers and of course it is bad for you and unpleasant but you can’t underestimate what changes take place inside the brain of someone with an addiction. You’re being far too black and white about it.