Lack of empathy in hospital cigarette ban

Sir, – I was disappointed to read Mike Donachie’s intemperate attack on smokers who light up on hospitals grounds (Lighting up debate on smoking near hospitals, Courier, February 24).

I completely understand that hospitals don’t want to encourage or condone smoking, but they can be very stressful places for patients, visitors and staff.

Banning smoking outside, where there is no risk to anyone else, suggests a terrible lack of empathy for people who may be at a low ebb and in need of a comforting cigarette.

Banning smoking on hospital grounds also discriminates against patients who are infirm and unable to leave the site without assistance.

Threatening them with fines of up to £1,000 is genuinely shocking.

The policy advocated last week by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (Calls for 15-metre no smoking zones outside Scottish hospitals, Courier, February 18) would also ban vaping on hospital grounds which suggests this is less about health and more about controlling people’s behaviour.

The overwhelming majority of vapers use e-cigarettes to help them quit smoking.

If this was a health issue why would hospitals prohibit the use of a product that leading bodies like Public Health England say is 95% less harmful than cigarettes?

Instead of punishing people with legally enforceable no-smoking areas, the government should allow hospitals to provide comfortable smoking areas within easy walking distance of hospital buildings.

What is “offensive and disgusting” is not smoking outside hospitals, but the intolerance of people like Mike Donachie, an ex-smoker whose compassion for those who still enjoy the habit extends no further than the end of his own censorious nose.

Simon Clark. Director, Forest, Cambridge.