Pubs in hospitals? I’ll drink to that!
Tuesday, March 19, 2019 at 10:17 Further to the Forest report about hospital smoking bans, published last week.
Rob Lyons wrote an excellent piece for Spiked that was headlined, a little misleadingly, ‘Why we should allow smoking in hospitals’.
(The report called for smoking to be allowed outside, on hospital grounds, not inside.)
Anyway, I was rather taken by the following response that was posted in the comments:
Speaking as a lifelong non smoker I agree with this article. Smokers are a hectored, bullied group. Any other group can of course claim discrimination and win, this group can't.
As an added point I would also like to see alcohol served, preferably with a bar in hospitals. I recently spent a day in hospital whilst my wife had an operation. The boredom was unbelievable.
Wetherspoons have pubs in airports and motorway service stations. Why not hospitals? I jest not!
Pubs in hospitals? I'll drink to that!
Reader Comments (8)
What good would that be for smokers when no one is fighting for their right to smoke in comfort inside with 21st century ventilation rather than 12th century regressive exclusion.
There's no point in a pub or cafe when smokers can't use them and the bullying smokerphobics would just moan even more when staggering drunk outside a hospital that smokers are cowering somewhere near the entrance.
Don't give up on us Simon. We all deserve comfort and equal treatment and respect. We do not have to bother anyone else. There is no reason on any grounds except spite to ban smokers from meeting like minded people in indoor comfort - especially when in hospital or visiting hospital at intense times.
Pat, blogs like this occasionally need a bit of light relief. Pubs in NHS hospitals? It will never happen. But the thought amused me.
Yes, I chuckled too, but should say that as a teenager I worked in one of the big psychiatric hospitals built by the Victorians and distinctly remember some old boys being prescribed a daily bottle of Guinness rather than the 'liquid cosh' (major tranquillisers).
As a student nurse it was also my weekly duty to escort a bunch of them to the village pub. Though a non-smoker I was expected to carry a cigarette lighter at all times on duty, and soon learnt how to fill a pipe for those whose hands weren't steady enough.
Closing those places may have been a general improvement in care, but some of the attitudes to care were far more humane than today's.
I wish I could take the subject lightly but it is a bit too serious for that. However, I didn't think for one minute that anyone was going to stagger out of a hospital drunk from the hospital bar - but you know if they did, I would be right in thinking that they would still look down on smokers outside while ignoring their own imperfections.
It is called 'selective morality', Pat. Driven me mad all my life.
The anti-smoker hatred and bile really came out when someone suggested our local hospital should fine people for smoking outside:
https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/17516666.call-for-cigarette-butt-litterers-at-royal-blackburn-hospital-to-be-fined/?action=success#comments-feedback-anchor
I though it worse when that obese Nick Ferrari on The Pledge debating show said he honestly believed that instead of a child's voice over a tannoy urging smokers to stop smoking, there should be a button for smokerphobics to press that douse smokers in water. Presumably he means those who are inpatients and turfed outside too. What has this country become 😥
Perhaps Ferrari is obese having given up fags and taken to junk food to compensate, and cranky for the same reason.