Rules are for everyone!!

I was never offered a nicotine patch, even though I was an in-patient, I was just left to suffer withdrawal symptoms. No-one even asked if I was a smoker. This was in the days before e-cigs, I might add.

Its a persons choice if the wish to smoke but their life style choice should not impact on others
Patents leaving a hospital should not have walk through other people's smoke.
Young babies and children are more susceptible to the Nicoline fumes

I understand that there are people with addictions but they don't usually affect the public around them.
I would be very upset if I got sprayed in fanta every time I stood next to a person drinking outside.
But a least that would not affect my health,,
Unlike Passive Smoking !

Notanan, my first SIL led the perfect healthy lifestyle. Extremely active, a non smoker etc. He died of leukaemia aged 24.

Smoking is addictive and addicts need help to give up.It is not any different to giving up heroin or alcohol.Yes i agree passive smoking is dangerous and causes asthma but so do diesel fumes and i don't see many people giving up their cars, household cleaning products cause asthma also, what stash have you got under your sink ? We are all as guilty as each other.

..have just read all this with great interest!...unfortunatly AM still battling with the 'weed'. keep stopping/starting..cutting down..smoking more..changing brands..patch on patch off..aaaagh BUT never ever impose my smoking on other people! Antonia I would have used the lift too!! Its a horrendous addiction!!! Happy for all of you who've conquered it ?

grannypiper I totally agree that it is addictive and addicts need help. However, they have no right to inflict their poisonous fumes on others. e.g standing at the doors of a hospital and blowing their poisonous fumes as sick people go past. Anyone who has experienced an asthma attack will tell you, it is one of the scariest things you will ever experience.
I worked in a school years ago, where nearly everyone smoked. I couldn't used the staffroom as there was always a thick fog of smoke in it. Those staff members who smoked, thought they had a right to inflict their poison on others, without any regard for other staff's welfare. It was the non-smokers who had the problem. We were selfish in complaining.Totally self centred!
As for chemicals under the sink, we people with chronic lung disease can make that choice not to buy them, nor do we inflict them on others.
Smokers, puff if you like, that's your business, but don't inflict it on those who do not want to inhale your carcinogenic poisons.

Marydoll, I am not agreement about smoking in a school staffroom. I used to teach in a junior school where lots of people smoked, and smoked in the classroom with children standing next to them! In those days, attitudes towards smoking had not reached the manic, shock-horror proportions of today. No-one batted an eyelid over classroom smoking. It is our attitudes that have changed. I do think it is a bit for an over-reaction to imply that walking past someone smoking is going to cause long term damage. A whiff of cigarette smoke doesn't cause cancer, it's longterm exposure that is harmful.
No-one takes this attitude towards people filling up their cars at a petrol station, and yet the fumes from petrol are seriously bad for you. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1981951
Sue1169 I hope you had a lovely time in Dubai.

Antonia I am not objecting to smoking, if people want to smoke, that is their business.
I do have a problem running the gauntlet of smokers at the entrance to a hospital, when I am on my way to a respiratory appointment and already struggling to breath. Neither am I saying that walking past a smoker will cause long term damage. A whiff of smoke is enought to start a coughing fit and then I start wheezing. I understand where the OP is coming from.

I had a hysterectomy and DH came to the hospital to take me home. I was in a very weak state so he found me a bench by the main door while he fetched the car. Two men came and sat either side of me. Both lit up their fags and blew smoke all over me. I felt like vomiting. How inconsiderate they were. I hate the smell of smoke.

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!

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).

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

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)

Can't get those emotis to work, sigh.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

My ward companions were not rough types either.

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.

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 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.