Hospital admits defeat and reinstates smoking shelters
Monday, October 1, 2012 at 14:11 I have just been on the BBC Radio Leeds lunchtime phone-in.
Bradford Royal Infirmary, which banned smoking on its grounds in 2006, has today "admitted defeat" (the BBC's words) and reinstated smoking shelters.
So much for Stoptober!
Apparently patients and visitors were ignoring the ban and congregating around the entrance to the building.
I described it as a sensible, pragmatic and, above all, caring decision. I did however add that, in terms of the shelter they allow, regulations on outdoor smoking shelters are needlessly restrictive ("pigs are treated better").
I was the first guest so I didn't hear the rest of the programme but I understand they were going to discuss the more general subject of smoking outside.
Before I finished I therefore made the point that there are no health grounds on which to ban smoking outside and if you don't like the fact that so many people are lighting up outside there's an easy solution to the 'problem' – support separate smoking rooms in pubs, clubs, offices and, yes, even hospitals.
Reader Comments (6)
There is no "passive" health justification in stopping smoking outside. Banning smokers from places they are quite entitled to access like other members of the public is just a spiteful attempt to exclude them from places they have every right to be.
A close relative, when she went into hospital for the first time told me afterwards that she wished that she could only have a cigarette to make things bearable; I wonder how many relatives, who are having a smoke while visiting someone who hasn't long to live, have been ticked off by an insensitive jobsworth......so a bit of common sense from Bradford but a long way off from the caring, sensible option of an indoor smoking room.
Yet doesn't it also show the innate tolerance and sense of fairness smokers have. These antis institute a spiteful, small-minded bigoted rule. yet when the smokers defy it, they don't just light up their fags and say, "We're ignoring the rules! Let's smoke inside!" No, they continue to smoke outside, with no attempt at all to smoke inside. They automatically make a decision as to what is reasonable and what is sensible.
This is why outdoor bans will fail (unless, like some workplace bans, they are built into contracts of employment etc). Smokers are reasonable and will go outside a public building to smoke. Yet anything beyond that just doesn't make sense so, despite their innate sense of fairness (which sadly, is why the antis' salami slice approach to bans has been so successful; if only they had been as selfish as the antis back in the 80s and said, "You want non smoking sections in planes? Then set up your own airline or shut up!") they will, without making a fuss or making a big deal of it, draw a line in the sand as to what is reasonable and what is not.
These kinds of outdoor smoking bans are beyond the pale and not reasonable. So they will not be observed.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00y84zq 1:11 in.
They should put you head to head with th the womman who came on after you. 'Total bitch' does not even bigin to dicribe her! In fact if what she had to say was in print, it would'nt look out place in Dick Puddlecote's cataloguing psychosis page.
Lets face it smokers will always smoke outside, like they've no option but to, to state the obvious.
So these bans just aint going to work, i.e the above.
And if the smoke police or jobsworth approach with a view to a fine or prosecute I'm sure all smokers have the cop on to give a false name and address, or depending on the mood, tell them to fuck off.