Should Royal Bolton Hospital reinstate its smoking shelters?
Wednesday, June 5, 2013 at 13:50 I was contacted last week by the Bolton Evening News.
The Royal Bolton Hospital is reviewing its smoking policy. As things stand smoking is banned everywhere.
Like other hospitals however the Royal Bolton has found a comprehensive ban difficult to enforce so management is considering reinstalling its smoking shelters in the hope that they can control where people light up.
In partnership with the Evening News the hospital has decided to consult the public before reaching a decision.
The paper wanted Forest's opinion, which I was happy to give them. I also forwarded some reports about other hospitals that have abandoned smoking bans in favour of smoking shelters.
I can't vouch for their current status but the featured hospitals were Bradford Royal Infirmary (October 2012), Royal Bournemouth Hospital (June 2010) and Great Western Hospital in Swindon (September 2009).
You can read the Evening News report, with my comments, here – Hospital smoking shelters: for and against.
You can also vote online. At the time of writing the vote was marginally in favour of reinstating the smoking shelters – 53 per cent in favour, 47 per cent against.
To have your say visit Should the Royal Bolton Hospital reinstate its smoking shelters?.
Reader Comments (8)
I hope that people vote FOR the the shelters, if only to give a black eye to the Holy Zealots who have invaded the Hospital Board. These people do not give a toss about the welfare of individual patients. They care only about their POWER.
yes, this makes total sense to allow smoking near a hospital. They need to be breathing tobacco smoke which contains over 4000 chemicals in second hand smoke. actually, let's just park our cars outside the front doors and blow car exhaust fumes into the hospital. i mean who cares about their health anyway.
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"I hope that people vote FOR the the shelters, if only to give a black eye to the Holy Zealots who have invaded the Hospital Board. These people do not give a toss about the welfare of individual patients. They care only about their POWER." - junican
With the exception of those, of course, who are truly neurotic, junican, and really believe they are doing everyone else a favour by getting rid of the "dreaded second hand smoke". My boss is one of those - sits next to traffic to have his lunch but asks me to move away because I'm smoking when I'm already 10 -12 feet away to begin with. Sadly, lots of people really believe this rubbish which is easily debunked by comparative chemical studies.
Best of luck with Bolton though!
You're right Blad. Isn't it amazing how people resent you smoking yet are quite happy to breathe in large quantities of carbon-monoxide poison from copious amounts of vehicle emissions?
Back in the 80s I worked for a life assurance firm. One of my colleagues was a young man who had recently fallen out with his girlfriend.
He returned home from the office a few days later and parked in his garage and left the engine running. He closed the garage doors and lay down behind the car directly under the exhaust pipe.
His body was found several hours later. He never mentioned what he intended and I didn't have a chance to speak to him, perhaps I could have talked him out of it.
My point is the antis never ever mention the danger of vehicle fumes which we breathe in every day – but god forbid if you smoke anywhere near them.
If health were a factor in the antis crusade then they would call for a ban of vehicles, or at the very least call for much tighter controls on vehicle emissions.
Their crusade has never been about health though – now has it?
Jon seems to have a problem with basic logic.
1) people who smoke are patients too.
2) people who don't smoke are not forced to enter a smoking shelter.
"contains over 4000 chemicals in second hand smoke."
Yep and every one below the official safe level. How many 'chemicals' are in people's breath? Has it been analysed? Best for us all to wear a mask, then, just to be safe, y'know, if it saves one life, etc......
And Jon's objection to "chemicals" must cause him problems going about his everyday life.
Yes, jon, thousands of chemicals everywhere - there is nothing on Earth that isn't made of them. For example, the average American diet contains 10,000 and a cup of coffee at least 1,000.
What matters is the dose - that's the first law of toxicology! Check it out. You like googling. Put in: "1st law toxicology" and "Paracelsus".
The scam about thousands of chemicals is designed to take in the scientifically illiterate and so if you've been lied to about that, what else have you been lied to about?
By the way, the same law also applies to carcinogens. After all, you're breathing aren't you? But did you know oxygen is a carcinogen? Do you use money? Nickel dust is also carcinogenic. Do you drink water? Lots of ground water contains arsenic (also carcinogenic) and if you go out in the sun, well, sorry, but sunlight is carcinogenic too! In fact, lots of perfectly natural substances are carcinogens. IT'S THE DOSE THAT COUNTS!!!!!!!!!!!