Completely agree with you! I’m going to the rotunda for the second time around. It doesn’t seem to be as bad now though as it was with my first son thankfully. Walking through a cloud of smoke to get into hospital when heavily pregnant was nasty but it was made worse by the fact that the cloud was created by women who were also pregnant!! Quit,at least while your pregnant!

Psychiatric patients are not in for babysitting! Plenty of medical patients need monitoring!

If there were less smokers taking up hospital beds then there’d be more beds for those who are sick through no fault of their own.

What about maternity hospitals, kids in bellies, don’t have the choice.

Limerick Maternity has banned it. I live close and it’s funny seeing all the smokers huddling under a tree across the road from the Belfield entrance in the rain. How stupid I was until 5 years and 15 weeks ago :)

I was already fat when I gave up…… 3 weeks now and no fatter… though to be fair, a few pounds would be easy enough to hide underneath all the other shopping!

About bloody time! Inconsiderate lot. Non smokers having to walk into a cloud of cancerous shit every time we try and visit someone at the hospital. Continue smoking smokers, but not in my space.

How would they feel if they were pissed on? They don’t care about second hand smoke, see how they like second hand drink. Would they think that’s disgusting?

Free methadone for unproductive members of society that spend their days breaking the laws. Smokers who are productive members of society however must pay for nicoteine patches, ridiculous.

Sorry now Ann but this really deserves addressing. How dare you state something with absolutely no consideration to facts!?
http://www.rte.ie/news/2007/0426/drugs.html – read this. You will find that those in methadone programs are those who are trying their damnedest to get beyond addiction. You can also find out more here: http://www.imt.ie/opinion/2010/10/15978.html. Crime is linked with drugs, yes, however those on methadone treatment are making their own effort in a world where ignorance to addiction is rampant – this thread alone highlights how widespread that ignorance is.

It’s very easy to be up there on the high moral ground when addiction has not affected you. Even to bring up such a point is to stray from the article (but I fell it needed to be addressed)

Such a move, IMO is over-doing it. I just gave up smoking a few weeks ago and I understand both sides of this argument. There is no reason to ban smoking outright truthfully. The hospital could enforce the ban in such areas as those described by people so that smokers would not be in the path of non-smokers.
The real reason for this is obvious; the hospital are taking a stance which says “we cannot send the message that something so unhealthy is acceptable on our grounds”.

That is very much a reasonable step IMO – just as a teacher cursing around students would be a bad example whether on the grounds of the school or outside it. It is a reflection of the professionality of the institution to enforce such rules.
If such circumstances extend beyond the gates of a managed institution onto the public streets then yes, I think it deserves to be called nanny state stuff.

@ Sheila B – I’m sorry that your experience of smokers is such a negative one – I genuinely am. However, to say that you are out walking in the street in a “huge cloud of disgusting cigarette smoke” might be overstating things just a tad? Are you sure it wasn’t just a backfiring Garda car?

I’d love to know if the 3:2 ratio so far on thumbs (against) my comment represents people who actually understand the issues or are simply going along with immediate emotive responses.

Ignore the facts at you’re own loss…. It’s your loss not mine. (P.S. I know the way it goes, address thumbs down and get thumbs down – if you do, you’re just highlighting how right I am)

OOOOOOOO what to do?!

Amen.

It’s worse when that person is your patient. I’ve been working as a both a student and chartered physio for over four years and I will never cease to be amazed and the bullet headedness with which people treat smoking even in the face of serious illness. I don’t support a complete ban but I do support any measure that takes the smoke away from people who haven’t chosen to smoke.

found that quite funny, as a smoker and was in hospital went to smoking area to find the doctor who had just lectured me about my smokibg puffing his brains out.. at the end of the day its the persons own choice..

I completley agree with you Reada. It has recently been found that deisel fumes are more harmful than asbestos, but they wont ban parking in hospital grounds. Far too much money to be made from that lucritvie sideline. Also if the patient is knocked down or falls and breaks a limb walking down that road to the gates of Beaumont hospital will the hospital be liable. You will find that nurses aids will be spending a lot of their time standing at the gates with patients in wheelchairs.

I’ve walked passed/behind people on the street and they have flicked their ash into my clothes with not a care or sorry in the world. They have discarded their cigarette onto the footpath at my feet. While walking on the street I have continuously walked into a huge cloud of disgusting cigarette smoke. After showering and putting clean clothes on each day, within minutes I stink of their cigarette smoke.

A lot of us I am sure have a few bad habits, but smoking and contaminating others fresh air is not one of mine.

most people do!

Paul, let’s not get into that debate – people have thrown around figures before which have not proved to be based on facts or at the very lest do not confirm the whole picture.

Also – smokers die about 7-8 years earlier than non-smokers so in that time, 29% of the population are saving the taxpayer in unpaid pensions.

If you want to get into the money argument, come prepared.

@ tomynnI have no idea what you are talking about as in no sense can be made out of what you wrote. Sorry.

I think you know exactly what I’m saying – that’s why you are sidestepping it. But to clarify, rather than leave it hang….

The revenue take on tobacco is €1.2bn – this is a fact based figure.
The treatment of tobacco related illnesses has been quoted (with no backup) as a bit over €2bn.
I’ve asked where people have come up with the cost to health services before with no answer but taking a look around it seems to have come from a couple of sources. One of those is a report which quotes 6-15% of healthcare budgets in countries like Ireland is spent on smoking related illnesses. Those who want to attack smokers choose the 15% and that equates pretty much to the €2bn that gets quoted.
And by sticking to the 15% the anti-smoking lobby claim that smoking is costing everyone else approx €1bn.

The other source is a news report where minister Shortall claims cost to health budget of €2bn+/year. I’ve yet to see this statement reported alongside any supporting research (other than the report by the HSE which states 6-15%)

If you stick to the 6% figure, the cost is about €800m – in which case smokers are contributing €400m per year to the economy.

On top of this is Paddy’s point. Most people do pay for their own healthcare. When the cost to health budget gets quoted, I’d like it if a more comprehensive statement were made. Is this cost recovered through health insurance in whole or in part? I suspect it is….

If the argument is an economic one then the shorter lifespan of smokers is also a valid (if uncomfortable) thought.

I don’t write this to defend smokers – I write it to defend good sense. Often people make statements based on very little, with very little though put into it. These comment pages just allow the vocal to spew absolute rubbish about how they feel, not about facts.

For anyone thinking of giving up smoking, I hope you manage it. I recently have myself.

Jaysus tomy. Sorry I asked.

But that’s my point.
I don’t mean to be taking digs at you about this Paul but just today I quoted research on the Youth Defense Facebook page.
They didn’t like it.
I appear now to be banned.
They have also deleted my comments which were in no way abusive. Obviously they had no answer and feared that people reading the research I pointed at would steer them away from the so called pro-life stance.

I feel that people should not just vomit their feelings onto places like this. Just take a look at the thumbs for some comments – absolute tripe. Across many websites “likes” are allowing those who simply don’t know to roll with their feelings with no effort made to find out the facts.

The above is a fairly significant rant – I hope you don’t take it as aimed at you. That’s certainly not the intention. I don’t even know what the intention is… Mostly I suppose to point out that people stating their opinion as fact does not constitute fact.

P.S. if anyone has interest in seeing the comments which were deleted and banned I’b be happy to share them. Dunno what the most insulated way to do that is though…..

I’m sure it does – as it annoyed me when my dad spent a week in hospital with pleurisy. I visited – he said “let’s head outside”.
I gave him grief and he said that he would give up straight away if it wasn’t so painful to cough and he expected to cough when he did give up.

I thought he was giving me a load of lies but he hasn’t smoked since recovering from that. I’m sure that in the majority of cases those who smoke outside hospitals will continue to do so but not all…. I’m sure medical professionals see that too.

Yes because being in a wheelchair clearly is due to smoking….

It’s possible. Smoking can lead to legs needing amputation.

And emphysema and heart conditions, strokes and the rest! A wheelchair is something to look forward to if youre a smoker.

My point is not that it’s possible – my point is that the poster appears to link smoking with wheelchairs… in a hospital….

Because most people who end up in hospital with smoking related problems end up in wheelchairs because they dont have the basic lung capacity to walk from their bed to the front door! You’d think that someone who is having such a health scare and therefore ending up in a wheelchair would cop on and stop smoking!
The number of smokers I meet in work with medical cards is unreal. If you smoke, then you shouldnt be entitled to a medical card IMO.

If that’s the case, if you drink you shouldn’t be either.

No-one “needs” to smoke. What patients do need is to not smoke.

They didn’t cover the meaning of the word “addiction” in physio school so, Stephanie?

It’s a bit patronising to label them stupid for doing what they do. I’m not a smoker but people should be free to make their own choices and as long as the smoking is outdoors then I have no problem. It is simplistic to say when they are sick they shouldn’t be smoking but perhaps it’s a coping mechanism.
Everyday all over the country people are eating too much, driving too fast, wrong foods, not exercising etc. etc.
Many people make the wrong choices but we should respect their freedom to make the wrong choices

If someone wants a smoke. Sorry Stephanie

As a tax payer please stop.

You may not want to but one day your body will

As a tax payer i like my cigerette.

What about non-smokers who are not innocent?

Plenty of research out there about the optimum tax level on tobacco products.

If you look into it, you’ll find that there is a limit that you can tax to. Anything beyond that and you encourage the black market. Then you’re into an entire other mess which most people simply don’t see.

I also lecture the clowns in my pub who drink too much.

Trolling again Richard

I dunno who the brains were given out by….