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20 out of 10 to NHS! Set To Ban Smoking On Hospital Grounds

golden

Senior Member
Messages
1,831
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-s...ld-to-ban-smoking-near-hospitals-8966155.html

My hospitals are crowded at the main entrances and side fire exit doors with patients in wheel chairs on drips in their hospital gowns in a Smog of Smoke...puffing away.

There are plenty of medics amongst them smoking too.

Staff have been taking patients to smoke, losing track of smoking patients and have to spend valuable time searching for them.

I find this totally unacceptable especially when patients are dying from dehydration because there is not enough time to get them water etc.

When I was looking after my ill mother , going to hospital with her was an eye opener for me.

At the Specialised Chemotherapy hospital - it was staff that taught my Mother not to just sneak out for a quick few puffs - but to chain smoke outside and have several. My mother had never thought of doing this before.

I was annoid as its was most likely the smoking caused her bladder cancer.

Her community nurses too encouraged her to keep smoking.

They stole something from me and turned me into the 'bad' guy by being the one to strongly suggest to mother she quit.

This should have come from them.

Only one other Doctor suggested this out of dozens. Special, sincere thanks to that Doctor.

This all affected my M.E. negatively as having to sit in a cloud of smoke is bad for me too!

This is a cultural lifestyle change occurring I think.

Best
Golden
 

peggy-sue

Senior Member
Messages
2,623
Location
Scotland
It's legal and there are thousands of addicts - the tax they pay, pays for the health service.

I agree, it stinks, I wish I had never started. I've converted to an electronic one now, for over a year.:thumbsup:

It doesn't stink, there is NO DANGER from the "secondary" steam. They are vastly preferrable to stinkies, both in terms of the practice itself; and in terms of massive harm reduction.

Nothing else has been able to help me quit.
I quit the booze, I'm an alcoholic - I thought if I was strong enough to get through alcohol withdrawal and stay sober, that ciggies would be a breeze.

They were not.

If I had got cancer while still smoking, it would merely occur to me that it was too late to bother with giving up.

I couldn't put myself through that nightmare on top of having cancer. Frankly, I didn't really think life would be worth living, without them.

I do understand your anger, Golden - but it was your mother's choice to continue.

I also understand the need for a smoke-free environment in hospitals.

But not in the public grounds outside.

I agree also, that something needs to be done about the folk hanging around ouside doors where the non-smokers might be exposed to it.

The only respectable solution would be to have smoking rooms - for patients and for staff, with all the usual paraphernaila about giving up and advice and support for those who do want to quit, and an attempt made to persuade folk who are resitant to giving up completely, to try the electronic kind instead.

But banning it completely will only make many smokers refuse treatment if it's going to be an overnight stay.
 

peggy-sue

Senior Member
Messages
2,623
Location
Scotland
I did go a whole two days without one, once. Long before I went electric.

I couldn't stand living with me, feeling as bad and miserable and angry and hyped-up and stressed and basically, quite keen to kill something, just out of spite, as I did.
 

golden

Senior Member
Messages
1,831
Medics

*Encouraged
*promoted
*suggested ways of increasing

Smoking.


Therefore because my Mother was an addict - she was DENIED CHOICE and support to break free from the toxins that were growing her Cancer.

This is totally unacceptable. They should be a shining beacon of health ...

not enabling addiction.

One patient was on her THIRD leg operation with the threat of losing it - when we chatted to her at the smoking hideout ....

her illness was caused by smoking.

There are other legal activities , sex, porn, alcohol ...

should we be getting our medics to provide time, resources, ways and means for those things too ?

Fundamentally though, smoking is bad full stop. Even though it is legal.

Hospital should be a place of wake -up...a place of inspuration and getting back on the road to help.

After my Dad had his smoking heart attack and triple bypass - it was a Doctor who scared him to death and hammered home to stop smoking.

He used that different environment to stop there and then...

it should not have been made MORE difficult for him as he watched patients all go for their ciggies ....??

Bless him he never smoke again. Unfortunately he didn't address his alcohol addiction :(

I do take a tough stance on this and will support all NHS staff who start to help their patients to health not to addiction.

I do have deep empathy for addicts. I am sorry if that doesn't come across.

Best
Golden

:) please note Capitals = gentle emphasis NOT shouting
 

golden

Senior Member
Messages
1,831
I did go a whole two days without one, once. Long before I went electric.

I couldn't stand living with me, feeling as bad and miserable and angry and hyped-up and stressed and basically, quite keen to kill something, just out of spite, as I did.

@peggysue

what are these e-cig contraption gadgets ?

Friend says they all using them now in cities.

Whats in them? Whats in the 'steam ' exaltation?

Friend worries something harmful...

Best
Golden
 

peggy-sue

Senior Member
Messages
2,623
Location
Scotland
The problem with addiction is that the decision to quit requires a huge shift in belief systems - similar to "finding God", or deciding not to believe in a deity - or converting from one religious doctrine to another.

Once that decision is made, that is the time that help is needed.
You can't force it onto somebody. It won't work.

Addicts "know" all the downsides - intellectually, but they don't actually believe in them, "in their hearts".

All the "evidence" is there for their bodies to make their minds up for them - they feel vile without the drug, they feel better with it.

Sorry Golden - you posted while I was writing!
editing to reply.

What's in the electric vapourisers?

Pharmaceutical grade pure nicotine, polyethylene glycol (used in asthma inhalers) vegetable glycerin and a flavouring.

The nicotine is absorbed through both the mouth cavity and the lungs - if the user inhales - but they can be used like cigars, depending purely on buccal (mouth) absorption.

A little bit of the liquid drips onto a heater when you draw on them, it vapourises the liquid.

All that is breathed out is steam - and sometimes folk might get a tiny whiff of the flavour if they are very close to it.
I don't think any nicotine has been detected in the secondary steam yet.

My brother's partner uses one with a lot of fruity flavours - he says he is now used to catching tiny whiffs of jam if it is being used in somewhere confined - like the car.

I am of the opinion that there is a lot of addictive stuff in tobacco cigarettes that is not nicotine.

I did get a 2 month bout of anhedonia when I stopped stinkies completely. They do contain MAO type antidepressant drugs.
 
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brenda

Senior Member
Messages
2,266
Location
UK
@golden l agree with you that very sick people should have support to improve their lifestyle choices but hospital is not the place to start it. It is much too stressful already to be inthere and even in the middle of chemo it might be best get that out of the way first. There are huge changes take place on quitting and it is not known whether it could advance cancer etc at critical pointbut maybe not for CPD.
 

caledonia

Senior Member
I've done some research on quitting cigarettes as my BF is a long time smoker. Supposedly the best way to quit is to go cold turkey. If you try to taper you will constantly be in withdrawal. If you go cold turkey, it takes three days to get over the physical addiction, then a couple more weeks for neurotransmitters, blood sugar, etc. to adjust. You can drink cranberry juice to help with blood sugar drops and dopamine raising herbs to help with mood swings. The dopamine raising herbs are supposed to be similar to using the drug Chantix (it's probably called something different in the UK).

I believe the reason it's so hard to quit is because the way cigarettes affect your neurotransmitters. Dopamine is the feel good neurotransmitter. Genetically, people with MTHFR A1298A are more likely to become addicts. This mutation lowers dopamine, so they will get a bigger boost out of the dopamine raising activities of smoking, drinking, etc. and will feel that they need these substances to feel normal. My BF has this mutation and says stuff like this.

I have a friend who's a smoker who has been in the hospital a few times for several days (for smoking related disease), and they give him a nicotine patch. This is in Kentucky, which is probably the international center for tobacco and smoking. They still allow smoking in public buildings, but I guess not in hospitals.

However, across the river in Ohio, smoking is banned in public buildings. I have another smoker friend who is a nurse. She can't even smoke in the parking lot of the hospital and has to go off the hospital property to smoke. This hasn't managed to stop her from smoking though...

Vaping (e-cigarettes) is starting to become popular. I know several people doing this.

The times are indeed a-changing.
 

MeSci

ME/CFS since 1995; activity level 6?
Messages
8,231
Location
Cornwall, UK
I fully understand your anger, @golden - my mother died of lung cancer when I was very young, and I developed debilitating asthma from smoking. That made me give up, but as @peggy-sue says it is very difficult. I had to try 3 times before I succeeded.

Hospitals are very stressful places to be. Some people may already know that they are terminally ill, so may feel that there is nothing to lose by having a few more cigarettes.

I do agree that smokers should not be congregating where their smoke will affect other people, and think that there should be places that people can go to smoke where it will not affect others. I also agree that staff time should not be used helping people to smoke.

Hospitals are also very stressful places to work, and I wouldn't want to deny staff who smoke the right to do so, as long as it is outdoors and out of other people's way.

Electronic cigarettes seem to be a much safer option for all concerned. There's info on them here.

I much favour the 'carrot' approach rather than the 'stick' approach. (Now there's an idea - people could go for a carrot instead of a cigarette. :D)
 

golden

Senior Member
Messages
1,831
@golden l understand you being upset that doctors have not said stop smoking but the policy may be that the stress of stopping will not help treatment.

I think stopping polluting the body with carcinogens will SPEED UP physical body healing.

For the psychological treatments time idle in hospital can be used to teach OTHER methods of relaxation, coping and support.

I am happy for hospitals to invest a LOT of cash to helping smokers stop :

Hypnosis, shiatsu, visualisation ....whatever...
Patches will no doubt be given for free.

:)
Best
Golden
 

peggy-sue

Senior Member
Messages
2,623
Location
Scotland
:)
While sex, porn, alcohol are also legal, Golden, :love: folk don't actually "need" them every hour or so!

Addicts don't "recover". At least that is my experience.

They have to learn how to live with all the horrible feelings that the drug alleviates, all the time.

Why is smoking so prevalent amongst the "mentally ill"?
To the point that schizophrenics, most of whom smoke about 60-80 a day, are even officially considered to be using tobacco in a different way to the general population?

Why do you think AA use "God" to replace the booze?:cautious:

Addiction makes mothers neglect and abuse their own children.

How powerful does a thing have to be to override the maternal instinct?
Something normally strong enough that a mother would die or kill for her child.

It's not something a non-addict could ever comprehend.:cry:
 

Firestormm

Senior Member
Messages
5,055
Location
Cornwall England
Our local hospital has no smoking grounds. On a recent visit, Mum took the dog for a walk around the grounds, and 'off campus'. Came to a lane full of people - yep - you guessed it: all of them hospital employees chain-smoking!! :)

The same thing used to happen when I worked in a school and smoked myself. We'd all 'race' off campus on our breaks and 'hide' away on a nearby housing estate.

Rather like the modern equivalent of the bike sheds I suppose and with the same degree of guilt attached :)
 

MeSci

ME/CFS since 1995; activity level 6?
Messages
8,231
Location
Cornwall, UK
Addicts don't "recover". At least that is my experience.

They have to learn how to live with all the horrible feelings that the drug alleviates, all the time.

Some do recover. I have kicked 3 addictions and was completely free of the urges within about a year. I was even able to re-indulge on an occasional basis and not feel the need for more.

I do know that this is not the case for everyone though. We are all biochemically different.
 

golden

Senior Member
Messages
1,831
The problem with addiction is that the decision to quit requires a huge shift in belief systems - similar to "finding God", or deciding not to believe in a deity - or converting from one religious doctrine to another.

Once that decision is made, that is the time that help is needed.
You can't force it onto somebody. It won't work.

Addicts "know" all the downsides - intellectually, but they don't actually believe in them, "in their hearts".

All the "evidence" is there for their bodies to make their minds up for them - they feel vile without the drug, they feel better with it.

Sorry Golden - you posted while I was writing!
editing to reply.

What's in the electric vapourisers?

Pharmaceutical grade pure nicotine, polyethylene glycol (used in asthma inhalers) vegetable glycerin and a flavouring.

The nicotine is absorbed through both the mouth cavity and the lungs - if the user inhales - but they can be used like cigars, depending purely on buccal (mouth) absorption.

A little bit of the liquid drips onto a heater when you draw on them, it vapourises the liquid.

All that is breathed out is steam - and sometimes folk might get a tiny whiff of the flavour if they are very close to it.
I don't think any nicotine has been detected in the secondary steam yet.

My brother's partner uses one with a lot of fruity flavours - he says he is now used to catching tiny whiffs of jam if it is being used in somewhere confined - like the car.

I am of the opinion that there is a lot of addictive stuff in tobacco cigarettes that is not nicotine.

I did get a 2 month bout of anhedonia when I stopped stinkies completely. They do contain MAO type antidepressant drugs.

Sorry to hear of your wrotten experience when you made full effort to quit ....thats awful.

I think the pure forms of tobacco specially sent off for are better - yes . rollies.

My mother was PRESCRIBED to start smoking when she was 27ish. She had escsped the habit til then. Looking back, I think she had a thyroid problem.

This so called G.P. smoked like a chimney with his ashtray always overflowing in the consultation room - whilst consulting... Pah.

There is RISK with

PASSIVE VAPING :) :)

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news...-cigarettes-smokeless-vaping-risks/57121894/1

So I am now bothered if I in a NO smoking zone ....and these are being used . Its not fair on me.

It just takes a shift to accept hospital grounds are no longer going to be places to smoke on.

I was an only child with two heavy smoking inconsiderate parents. Trapped in rooms and cars with no open windows. I get migraines , itchy sore eyes, stinky clothes, breathing difficulty.

It is in my medical notes as a youngster my 'cough' i presented with was not clinical - but from smokers.


I have to think more about your other points becsuse they have gone over my head...

Very Best
Golden
 
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MeSci

ME/CFS since 1995; activity level 6?
Messages
8,231
Location
Cornwall, UK
There is RISK with

PASSIVE VAPING :) :)

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news...-cigarettes-smokeless-vaping-risks/57121894/1

So I am now bothered if I in a NO smoking zone ....and these are being used . Its not fair on me.

I think there could be just as much risk from a more ubiquitous source - perfumes - and artificially-perfumed products are widely used in and by hospitals and other NHS providers. The NHS appears to have recently cottoned on at least to the fact that they can cause headaches - see this page.

Hopefully they will soon institute bans on them as has happened in some other countries.
 

peggy-sue

Senior Member
Messages
2,623
Location
Scotland
Wheeee! I've just read your link, MeSci.
If they go on prescription, I'll get them for free!

However, that article does go on with that old myth, that what smokers want is the "hand to mouth action".
Utter nonsense!

When you are eating, is your pleasure derived from cutting your food up, putting it on your fork and lifting it to your mouth?

Or do you like the taste and texture and flavour in your mouth (have a look at a sensory homunculus and see how important the mouth is compared to the rest of the body.
This one only maps out the sense of touch. It doesn't do taste and smell, I don't think.
http://sciencedefined.wordpress.com/2012/01/31/the-skin-is-also-a-map/

What folk like about smoking is the taste and the mouth feel. The way it hits the back of your throat, followed by a sense of relief of the exhalation.

This is what e-cigarettes provide. The right physical feeling in the mouth and throat.


Golden, we were cross-posting again!

Yes, some of the early ones were bad and did contain some garbage. I wouldn't use one from China, I'm afraid because of the lack of quality control.


There has been a huge backlash against them, because big pHarma and the tobacco industries see their profits vanishing. The government is worried about loosing the tax revenue.

One, and one only, has exploded, and that was an early Chinese one.

There have been reports of things like nitrosamines being found.:aghhh:

What the reports which report these findings don't report is that they are found at levels 1000s of times less than the permitted levels in food. :cautious:
 

brenda

Senior Member
Messages
2,266
Location
UK
@golden l talking about hormones that surge through the body when one is under extreme stress like when quitting an addiction. When you are adding powerful chem. icals, the result could overule the benefits of removing nicotine. I quit a smoking addiction myself but know that it has to be at the right time when nothing else is going on othwise failing just adds to your problems.
 

golden

Senior Member
Messages
1,831
I think we live in a habitually addicted society. Whether it is to one or two things or disguised under a little bit of everything can do you a lot of harm!

Sugar, junk food, caffiene, alcohol, nicotine , computer, mobiles ....

Its interesting.

Dr.Myhill was the first doctor i have read who asserts the above. I can't find that article .

This article doesn't seem like much help:

http://www.drmyhill.co.uk/wiki/Smoking_-_how_to_give_up

Surely , it doesn't matter how much or little i understand philosophically, psychologically ?

Isn't the bottom line always going to be simply to stop?

However thats a different subject entirely. The boundary here is to stop whilst on hospital grounds...



:)
Best
Golden
 

peggy-sue

Senior Member
Messages
2,623
Location
Scotland
Golden, I promise I wont use my thing if you are anywhere near, just to please you, though

- not because I believe I'd be putting you at any risk whatsoever.

Addiction is a real problem for science or medicine to even define. I do believe the definition has been changed, because the old one, when used, made it absolutely clear that sugar and oxygen were addictive, but that LSD and cannabis are not. I suspect cocaine wasn't either.
They had to redefine it so that they could include the things they want to be defined as addictive.

But, gettting back to your point. :hug:

I disagree about the hospital grounds being smoke free. Hospitals are often set in acres and acres of grounds - it would take up too much staff time to get outwith the grounds during breaks.

But only with the condition that NO non smokers are exposed to it.

We do need to put an end to the dreadful smog in doorways.
 
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