NO SMOKING IN NEW YEAR
Hospital to butt out on Jan. 1
Smokers lighting up on Windsor Regional Hospital property can expect a hefty fine starting on the first day of January.
On Tuesday, Windsor Regional Hospital announced that, effective Jan. 1, 2018, smoking will be prohibited anywhere on hospital property and all designated smoking areas will be removed. That means patients, staff and visitors will have to leave hospital property if they want to smoke.
Windsor-Essex County Health Unit tobacco enforcement officers will issue violators a $305 fine.
Randy Easter, 59, of Windsor, has been smoking for most of his life. Easter, who’s living the final days of his life in the hospital, believes the new policy is ridiculous. Several times a day he heads out to smoke in the current designated smoking area near Kildare Street at Windsor Regional and has no plans to stop smoking.
“It’s not fair,” he said. “I have no problem coming over here (to the designated smoking area). I’m not bugging anyone here. The only people that come here are smokers. So if it’s bothering someone, I’ll move.”
In January, smokers will have to make their way to the sidewalks off the hospital property if they want to smoke. WRH president and CEO David Musyj acknowledges the new policy will be “difficult” to implement, but they’ve been planning for it the last two years.
“It’s kind of an oxymoron where we have to worry about not having smoking on hospital property, because clearly, one of the issues that we do face is individuals that have a history of smoking and, unfortunately, end up with health problems,” Musyj said.
“It’s going to create some implementation issues and some difficulties because of the way it’s set up now for those who do smoke and have maybe tried to stop, but can’t, there is a segregated area for them.”
Having smokers move to the public sidewalks will create a headache for neighbouring homeowners, but Musyj said the hospital can’t stop where smokers go once they leave the property. Currently, the Smoke-Free Ontario Act allows for one designated smoking area for every hospital in Ontario, but those will be removed in the new year.
“Unfortunately, what that does is, they’re right across the street from someone’s home,” he said. “We’ve had complaints in the past where our neighbours are not happy that someone is standing there smoking and arguably staring into their front room.
“We have no ability to even stop that because, come Jan. 1, there will be no designated smoking area,” Musyj added.
WRH offers smoking cessation programs and nicotine replacement therapy products for staff and patients who are struggling to quit. But Valerie Cesnulas, a unit clerk at the hospital who has been smoking for 30 years, said the new rules won’t make her stop smoking — she’ll just smoke on the public sidewalks.
She said it’s creating a buzz among staff.
“They (the staff) don’t like it because you have to go farther (to smoke),” Cesnulas said. “They also don’t like it because you now have patients who have to go farther and they’re out here with IV poles and everything else. They’re not going to just stop smoking.”