Rules are for everyone!!

I gave up smoking 18 years ago. Occasionally I dream I am smoking and wake up horrified. My complaint about smokers is that they don't seem to think cigarette ends are litter and drop them anywhere.

I often had to accompany my DM to her Oncology appointments, and was always stunned by the number of in-patients standing outside the main doors, wearing nightwear and dressing gowns, with their oxygen supplies on a trolley next to them, their face mask hanging from it, whilst they filled their lungs with smoke!
I feel the oncologists would have been completely within their rights to refuse treatment to such people. What is the point of trying to cure their cancer if they're going to go outside and poison themselves,
I say this as an ex-smoker, I smoked from the age of sixteen until I was thirty four, so gave up (went cold turkey) almost twenty six years ago!

I haven't seen any posts on here 'defending cigarettes' Joyfully.

Perhaps some posters, having been long-term smokers themselves, are more aware of how hard it is to give up, but no one has said 'fags are wonderful and stop moaning about them and their toxic fumes'!

Interestingly, the people who complain about not being able to smoke outside hospitals can be the same people who are happy to go on long haul flights and not smoke. I have treated many smokers, and yes it is an addiction, but you don't die of not smoking, and unfair to blame anyone who does not want to inhale your smoke. I used to smoke many years ago, so I know what cravings are, but also know you can get over it within few weeks. I have treated medical staff to help them stop smoking and they say they know they are crazy to smoke when they see the results of smoking. In a few years we will see more evidence of vaping including the 'popcorn' lung. Sounds horrific. Smokers do need to respect non smokers who just don't want second hand smoke. There is plenty of help out there to stop smoking and have a healthier life. Stop defending cigarettes and the real harm they do. Life is more important that a carcinogenic.

some of those on trolleys. are literally dying for a fag

I have seen people at hospitals outside for a cigarette attached to drips and often also in wheelchairs.
I used to smoke and when my first DC was born I was unable to get out of bed so I was wheeled bed and all into the smoking room.
I have people in my family who are asthmatics and other breathing problems who have been in dire trouble.
I feel that smoking is blamed for far too much. More domestic violence results from alcohol. If you go to the Dr or hospital and admit to smoking every health problem is blamed on smoking. Smokers are not perfect, nor are other annoying types like the devotees to wooden flooring who don't care that they are making so much more noise (starting at 5 a.m.) than those who like carpets or those who go out to work at 6 a.m. and start cars while the retirees just want to sleep till 8 a.m.
Life is about coping with living your own life while others live theirs. I don't like drinkers or drug takers. I cant say much about smoking as I used to smoke myself. I hate noise in the early morning but cant ask my neighbours to go unemployed to allow me to sleep.
Hospitals have a lot more to be concerned about than smokers, they need to stop failed discharges and leaving people in corridors to die and they really need to do something about Hospital Acquired Infections.
It all depends on what is important to each individual
SPF

Asthma means you cannot breathe. You struggle for breath. You fear you will never be able to fill your lungs again and will die of suffocation. Asthma sounds like a nothingy little thing, a minor, fussy little condition. It is not. It kills. People genuinely die of asthma from not being able to inhale enough oxygen to live.
Asthma attacks can be triggered by many things - including cigarette smoke. My son, in his thirties, has had to fight for breath because of smokers lighting up where he could not get away in time. It is terrifying. Not just for him, but for anyone who loves him, because one day my fine and lovely son may not be able to draw that vital breath due to the selfish, self-justifying stupidity of people who feel their freedom is being limited by being expected to be considerate of others.
I smoked in my youth. Years ago I got fed up with the addiction running my life and timetable and ditched it. But I was NEVER the sort of smoker who would have lit a fag at the doorway of a hospital!

I am still a smoker 2/3 a day not a 20+ smoker but after a stressful Hospital Appointment I can feel the need for a cigarette. I do use e-cigarettes as I do not smoke in my own home or DD's Home (or any-one else's for that matter).

I am hoping to have another go at giving up soon (have to be in the right frame of mind).

I have been advised not to use patches for smoking cessation as I can go several hours without a cigarette, they actually make me dizzy so that would not help me if I was an in-patient. I do agree smoking outside a Hospital Entrance is unacceptable but as I have limited mobility if I'm waiting transport it's difficult to move too far away although I do move as far from doors as I can.

Rules are indeed for everyone and that includes speed limits - but many seem to regard it as OK to ignore those.

Marydoll I can quite appreciate your point of view, it must be awful to be obliged to pass through cigarette smoke if it makes you wheeze. The point I am trying to make here
Is that the hospitals themselves are at fault, in failing to provide a place for smokers where they are not affecting non smokers. If they had done this instead of applying a blanket ban then the problem of smokers congregating at entrances would not exist. The whole strategy was poorly thought out. They must have forseen that smokers would be forced to go outside for a cigarette.

We passed the smokers at the hospital door while visiting DD. My then 5yr-old DGD (just started school and reading everything around her) piped up loudly 'Gran that sign says No Smoking. Can't those people read yet?'

Marydoll.
I too am a victim of other persons selfishness.I rely on inhalers and every now and then when things get really bad am prescribed steroids. An x ray taken while in hospital, suffering complications from a severe bout of pneumonia,
showed both lungs irreparably damaged.
Both my mother father and husband were heavy smokers which cost them their lives.
What enjoyment people can get from this filthy habit I will never understand.

My ward companions were not rough types either.

Plus, I discovered later that problems after surgery are far more frequent among smokers than among non-smokers.
www.medscape.com/viewarticle/742992_16
" . . . clinical observations are strongly supported by a randomized clinical study involving 78 healthy volunteers in whom small standardized wounds were made on the buttocks and followed for the development of infection (SDC-271). Wound infections occurred in 12.6% of the wounds in individuals who smoked compared to only 2% in individuals who never smoked. Importantly, infections were significantly fewer in smokers who stopped compared to continued smokers after 4, 8, and 12 weeks of randomization (1.1% vs 21.7%) These studies all show that the risk of having wound infections in smokers compared to nonsmokers is at least doubled, depending upon the procedure, and is even higher involving procedures, which have associated skin flaps or obesity."

"Although cessation of smoking seems to reverse the increased susceptibility to wound infections, the best length of time for abstinence still remains to be established. From the existing data, it would seem that cessation of 4 weeks might be sufficient (SDC-271-274).

One of the primary reasons for the adverse effects of smoking on surgical infections is that it clearly decreases oxygen delivery to the wound (SDC-275)."

Other post-operative problems are also more frequent.

Margs, you appear to be unaware of the nature of cigarette addiction. No smoker is ever going to say, 'oh, the weather's not brilliant today so I won't bother having a cigarette.' Your suggestion that people who smoke are 'rough' types is a bit of a generalisation too.

When I was in 4-bed ward after my lumpectomy, two of the occupants would trundle their drip stands aloin g the corridor, down by the lift and along another corridor to the outside door, for a ciggie. This on a cancer ward - you'd think that would make them think twice. Incidentally, I had thought at first from our appearances that we were all the same age (about 65) but then discovered that I was over 65, the other non-smoker was over 75, and the two smokers were - wait for it - in their late 40s and early fifties.

Katek, yes, you are right, I am still nicotine addicted, but I still consider myself an ex smoker. Vaping isn't a perfect solution, but it is much safer than cigarettes, and the exhaled vapour is just that - vapour which harms no-one. It is the equivalent of a boiling kettle emitting steam. I, for one, am extremely pleased that e-cigs are available, and that I have not had the slightest desire for a cigarette since the day I started using them.

I've noticed that whenever I go to use the ATM just inside my local hospital's foyer (usually around breakfast time) there are always a clutch of at least a dozen people at the entrance, grasping their portable drips with one hand and a cigarette in the other - whatever the weather!

And, it has to be said, even taking into account that they are ill they are all - without exception - of somewhat 'rough' appearance, ie: not types you would want to meet down a dark alley on a foggy night!

Some interesting figures here on how much smoking breaks cost.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/society/2014/mar/03/smoking-breaks-cost-businesses-british-heart-foundation

Antonia you say you're an ex smoker but using 18 fluid just reduced to 12. If that is correct you are still nicotine addicted - just using a different delivery method.

When I worked in the hospital, the fire officer told me that when we had no smoking at all, people went into store cupboards for a fag.

Oxygen cylinders etc were in some cupboards..what is it with people?

We had constant demands for smoking shelter and the Trust decided against so the next thing was, staff having to sprint to roadside and use bus shelter late at night or in the early hours for a fag...complaints from neighbours then.

As everything it would be so much better if people were just better behaved.

I have never smoked. If these rules applied to sweets I'd be sprinting with the best of them.

Can't get those emotis to work, sigh.

And another thing, cigarette breaks for workers! Stop those too,standing outside, they look ridiculous! Other workers aren't allowed to leave their work regularly for ten minutes surely? Moan over.(wink)

Surely people have to wait if they are on an aeroplane, can't see the difference really.

After DH had his heart attack another recovering patient insisted on going outside for a cigarette every couple of hours. The irony was he put on a woolly hat as it was cold outside-protected his head but could have given himself another heart attack. I've seen patients with leg amputations from vascular complications outside smoking before the hospital banned smoking in the grounds. (I knew one of them).

In hospital a woman in the bed opposite to me had just returned from having a tracheotomy, was on a drip and wanted to go outside for a cigarette. The nurse said that it wasn't advisable to leave the ward for at least 3 hours after surgery., but she could only advise, not ban. After about 15 minutes the surgeon came and spoke to her, again he could only advise. She said that her husband would be with her. One of the arguments was that if the opening in her neck became blocked then she could die. She was totally adamant that she was going and she did. I couldn't believe how selfish she was and never gave a thought about the money that had been spent on her care in hospital. Obnoxious woman!