Ban leaves hospital patients out inc old

March 2005

‘We have to comply with the law,’ replied Wexford General Hospital general manager, Teresa Hanrahan, this week to concern raised about patients standing outside in all weathers, smoking cigarettes.

A member of the public telephoned this newspaper last week to express alarm at the sight of a woman patient in her pyjamas, shivering in the snow outside while puffing on a cigarette. She wondered why the hospital doesn’t provide smoking facilities for its patients.

The general manager, Ms Hanrahan, said there is a hut beside the back door of the hospital which is used by smoking members of staff, and patients are welcome to use if they wish. If fact, some do, she pointed out.

‘We had a no smoking rule in the hospital before the Tobacco Regulations came in and the hut was used then. When the law came in, we had it altered to comply with the new regulations, so that half of it is now open to the elements,’ she said.

‘I would accept that some people are addicted to nicotine but I have to comply with the law,’ said Ms Hanrahan, recalling that there was a time when people smoked inside the hospital, albeit sneakily in toilets and corridors.

‘We would always have discouraged smoking, but there was no law then to comply with. Now there is,’ she said.

She said that if the hut had not already been in place prior to the ban on smoking in public buildings, the hospital would not have provided any facilities.

‘We wouldn’t have supplied anything new, but the fact is that it was there, and I wasn’t going to take away something we had already,’ she said.