Country Gay is talking about giving up smoking. He’s decided it’s time and will attempt this effort with the help of Champix. Given that a packet of cigarettes cost about 9 euros a pack, I think he will be delighted with himself if he manages to kick them. Certainly it was the best decision I ever made nearly a decade ago.
Smoking, as CG informed me the other day, has definitely lost it’s ‘cool’ factor and is increasingly seen as a bit of a social faux pas. You’re not allowed smoke in pubs or restaurants or work places so you must remove yourself from friends and colleagues to indulge. Watching people shivering outside doorways while sucking desperately on their fags has reduced smoking to what it really is, a sort of sad addiction that robs your wallet as well as your health. CH is correct, there is nowt sexy or attractive about it.
Interestingly, chasing the smoker out doors is no longer enough. The HSE is to ban smoking from the grounds of its hospitals. This is a major decision. No longer will staff OR patient be able to indulge without leaving the grounds proper.
“The HSE’s director of public health policy, Dr Fenton Howell, who is a former chairman of Ash, the anti-smoking lobby group, said the policy had “gone without a hitch” in the hospitals already implementing it.
He added: “We need to recognise that there is almost a sense that cigarettes are not as dangerous as they are. Five and a half thousand people die from tobacco every year, and there are thousands admitted to hospital beds because of their addiction.
“The one thing that makes chronic bronchial problems worse is to continue smoking. Likewise surgical wounds heal better if you are not smoking.
“We have a responsibility to help patients manage their addiction and the illness caused by their addiction. If you don’t manage their addiction, you can’t manage their illness.
“We can’t manage patients by letting them continue the thing that brought them into hospital in the first place.”
(Remember the old smoking rooms of old in hospitals? Yellow grimy stained hell holes, reeking of fags and nicotine?)
Naturally this ban has opposition.
“
However, it has been the subject of fierce criticism by retired hospital doctor Dr John Nolan who described it in a letter to The Irish Times as an act of “primitive savagery”.
He explained: “The habitual smoker is an addict who in hospital needs the comfort of smoking to cope with an already gruelling experience. Its deliberate deprivation is an act of wanton, indeed wicked cruelty at a time when he or she is most in need of cherishing and comforting.”
It was also criticised by the smokers’ lobby group, Forest Éireann. Spokesman John Mallon said the smoking ban was introduced to protect non-smokers, yet those who smoked in the grounds of hospitals were a threat to nobody else.
“It is an attack on a minority based on the personal preferences of those in authority,” he said.
The outcome will be interesting. What will the seasoned smoker do when faced with such measures? Trot out onto the road? As much as I dislike smoking, are people harming anyone if they step OUTSIDE for a craft fag? Hard to know really, I’m against smoking of course, but it’s not illegal- yet! So can this be implicated without challenge? I guess we wait and see.
In the meantime, bravo CG and also to anyone who gave up in the New Year, best of luck to you all.
January 25, 2012 at 3:59 pm |
Best of luck to him, it must be such a hard thing to give up. Every day I thank my lucky stars I didn’t start smoking like my siblings. All but one have since given up and are off the smokes years now, but they all struggled.
It really is an addiction. I remember being in St James’s Hospital, six years ago, following major surgery. I was bound to the bed, covered in IV lines, I had a bag for poo, a bag for pee, a drain coming out of my side, a morphine drip and a seperate line ready for a blood transfusion, if I needed it. I had a general anesthetic and was off my face, delirious so I was.
The girl in the next bed was the same. She didn’t have the same complaint as me, but she had had surgery and had all the lines and drips and bells and whistles too. She was a smoker and almost immediately after coming around from the GA, she wanted to be up and outside smoking. If it wasn’t so tragic, it’d be fascinating – I swear I have never seen such single minded determination before. The look on her face as she made for the door, literally swooning with every step, was awesome. She smoked several times a day while she was there and forced her poor battered body out of the bed.
I think banning all smoking from the grounds of the hospital is OTT. Move it to a designated area, away from entrances, but banning it in its entirety isn’t the way to go. Some patients in hospitals are on their last legs. They’re going to deny an 80-year-old Alzheimer’s patient who has days to live a last cigarette? For the sake of the PC Brigade?
January 25, 2012 at 5:08 pm |
That sound bonkers, yet I recall people at St Lukes, dying from cancer, standing around outside in the grounds puffing away too. Agree to your other point completely, why not have a designated area? Why make them total pariahs?
January 25, 2012 at 6:45 pm |
I don’t smoke but this idiotic. Typical hypocrisy of the civil service. Is it for the good of patients? If so perhaps they should take care of matters in hand first, ye know, like showing the cleaners how to clean for example, bacteria and dirt are primary sources of infections. Surely the filth of HSE ran hospitals is a far more pressing issue for patient well being than going out the door for a smoke. Telling hospital management to enforce hospital cleanliness as opposed to them enforcing a no smoking policy would probably take the same amount of effort and time, yet be far more beneficial for patients. Or perhaps the HSE could use their time to address how mentally ill people are treated like shite in this country. The list is endless. Sacking the board of the HSE was not good enough; they need to abolish the whole thing and every arrogant self righteous fool in it.
Smoking is an addiction. And with the best will in the world, no addict is going to give up because somebody else says so. Some patients wouldn’t be able to walk outside the hospital grounds especially in the likes of St James (eg. My 87 year old grandfather), bad enough to be sick in hospital without being forced to sit through cold turkey.
I mentioned this before, last year my pal had a baby in the Coombe. One night at about 9.30 she called me, under the enormous pressure of having a sick child she wanted a smoke. She hadn’t smoked in 2 years. She knows her own mind. They don’t let you out after 9, she wanted me to drop in so she could walk out with me. She was not joking. A little security guard wouldn’t let her out for a smoke, a nurse appeared and in agreement shouted, “No smoking after 9 and no going out”. They got the full brunt of my fury. People are patients, not prisoners; we pay for those hospitals and staff through taxes. The hospital manager there is an obese grubby little man, he could easily be confused for a bin man. What sort of people prey on the vulnerable? Why? I really want to know. It seems to me that be it politicians, the HSE, overpaid consultants, county councils or spotty little security guards, a “take what you can and screw who you can” attitude is bread into every aspect of the public service in this country. There all dying to assert petty authority and fumble in the greasy till. After we caused our revolution and had the smoke we agreed to write a complaint. Neither of us got a response. They’d want to hurry up with it or I will post the entire video on You Tube.
People in this country would really want to grow a pair and stand up to this rubbish. They want an extra 100 euro for bothering your arse to be responsible and buy a house, they want to charge us more to pay the likes of “600 towsand” a year Pat Kenny, we are getting water meters while they are selling one of the countries biggest and potentially most profitable natural resources to Shell for a song. They payed UNSECURED bond holders 1.25 billon of tax payers money today. I am paying tax since I was 14, I have never ever ever seen the benifit of one cent of it. Never. If we want to go into a shop at 10.30 and buy a bottle of wine we should be able too, likewise we should be able do our shopping in SQ and and buy our beer without having to drive around looking for an off licence. If we want to jump into the 40ft with our fabulous dog not on a lead we should be able to too and if we happen to be in hospital and we fancy a smoke we should be able to nip out the door and have one. Everyone else is perfectly entitled to shut the fuck up and mind their own business.
January 25, 2012 at 6:51 pm |
Mutiny, that’s what is required, mutiny. * plans retreat from grid*
January 25, 2012 at 7:18 pm |
Right I’ll get me guevara shirt and meet you in the boozer, I predict riot.
Seriously though, the pen pushers are gathering ground. They need to be stopped. I appriciate the need for delegated legislation but these legs of the government like local cc’s and the HSE are losing the run of themseves. They need to be knee capped and put back in their box.
I genuinely cannot think of one thing I got from paying taxes, can you?
January 25, 2012 at 9:03 pm |
Schools,hospitals,water,electricity,buses,trains,roads,sewage treatment plants,streetcleaners,guards,judges,nurses,doctors,teachers
And Joe Duffy.
January 25, 2012 at 9:26 pm |
I don’t think so darling, My papa paid for my school, I paid myself for uni, I have private health insurance, I also have a private pension, I pay a private company for refuse collection, the road tax I pay on my car more than covers infrastucture, I have never claimed the dole (nor am I entitled to as I am self emplyed) and have been left on more than one occation waiting on the guards. So basically you are telling me the only thing I get for my taxes is water!!! That will be a short lived luxury. I bet there are many in the same boat as me.
January 26, 2012 at 5:30 pm |
Almost 8 months free of cigarettes. Still love the smell when the match hits the tobacco for the first time though. Otherwise I’m managing just fine. However, if my time was short, I see no harm in having a cigarette or two in my last few days. Feck the Hospital and it’s rules.
January 26, 2012 at 5:33 pm |
P.S. Champix has questionable side effects. I would be careful. I managed with Nicorettes Inhaler. It was very good. Takes the panic out of stopping. Wish him well in his challenge.
January 26, 2012 at 6:32 pm |
I will thank you, and well done you. I’ve head a few things about Champix, night sweats and so forth, I suppose I ought to go google it a bit further.
January 27, 2012 at 12:31 am |
Smoking rooms in hospitals ????? I went into see my Father at ( I think it was at St. Vincents) and the first thing he said to me was ” would you ever go down to the shop and get me a packet of fags, I’m gasping.” I did my sonly duty and he and his roommate immediately lit up, not in a smoking room, but in their beds !!!!!!! Mind you, this was 1962.
January 27, 2012 at 12:24 pm |
I always wondered why people pounced on your every word Nonny.
Thanks for clearing that up for me.
January 27, 2012 at 7:29 pm |
“I always wondered why people pounced on your every word Nonny.
Thanks for clearing that up for me.”
What has that got to do with? It is a stupid thing to say and not in the least bit relevant.. When some people cannot answer a question or prove a point they tend to resort to snide comments or insults. Plus it is frowned upon to disagree with bloggers. Lickarseism is what sets them aside from main stream media.
With that in mind, my point was perfectly logical and indeed true. I genuinely do not reap any rewards for paying income tax. Many feel the same.
January 28, 2012 at 2:46 pm |
He could easily be confused for a bin man.
He. Could. Easily. Be. Confused. For. A. Bin. Man.
*contented sigh*
January 28, 2012 at 6:47 pm |
Oh Gimmie, you are the man! Please tell me how I can be cool like you? Please, please, please??????
Lemmie see….. I’ll start with, You. Are. An. Excuse. Making. Loser. Is that ok? What about if I quit work and try to “find” myself, will that help?? I’ll stop taking responsbility no too ok??
January 29, 2012 at 5:59 pm |
Yay!
What are you talking about? I have a job. For which, given the prevailing economic weather, I am extremely grateful.
Why do you hate bin men, Nonny? They’re just trying to make an honest buck, like you and me…
January 29, 2012 at 9:58 pm |
I do not hate bin men. To imply that I said such a thing is nothing short of idiotic. Common sense would dictate that a peson who’s job involves picking up bins and loading them into a bin truck is hardly going to be clean and dressed in their Sunday best whilst they working, are they? No, they are not. But that is the nature of their job and it is perfectly acceptable. However, it is not acceptable for hospital managers to fashion a similar appearance, is it? No. Like, I understand how a bin man would have dirty finger nails, but how a hospital manager would is beyond me.
Likewise, a friend of mine is a gym instructor. I asked her why she off loaded her knew chap, she said whilst sitting in a nice restaurant she realized her bloke smelled worse than she did after she did two spinning classes back to back, She was hardly saying she hated gym instructors now was she? No, she was saying the blokes lack of hygiene was innapropriate given the setting.
No matter what I say you actively try to find fault with it, why? It’s like a weird obsession. Kinda freaky. When I read your comment
first I thought you were mocking my spelling or diction, ye know, as you normally do when you cannot intelligently argue with my point. It is ridiculous. Why do you give a shite what I say. Before you start, I know my spelling is shite dear, I didn’t think it was a prerequisite for commenting here. I told you before, I am deaf, not a bit deaf, w/o HA’s I am out of the game. As a result I cannot spell, like I thought a lightsaber was a lifesaver, I only dicovered yesterday that it’s fruition not fluition. I am very well educated and indeed read, but unless I develop a better memory soon, my diction won’t be improving. And to be honest I don’t really give a fuck either.
Look we don’t like each other and thats fine. Now as much as I’d like to say we can work through our differences, I don’t want to and I’m sure you don’t either so why don’t you refrain from addressing me and as a gesture of good will I will return the favor. I am sure people don’t follow this blog to read our squabbling. So lets do them a favor and stop.
January 29, 2012 at 10:24 pm |
nonny, you have a talent for rubbing people the wrong way methinks.
You say you don’t get anything for your taxes, which is quite false, you probably don’t get value for money but to claim that you get nothing is a bit arrogant.
Also, during a debate with a stranger, calling them “darling” is quite artfully annoying, if you were in person it would be like a patronising pat on the cheek.
January 29, 2012 at 10:46 pm |
Ah stop talking about me. Gimmie ignored the whole point of my argument and picked something petty, seriously why would you bother your hole. It’s weird. And exsqeeze me, I am genuinely nice to people, you don’t have to agree with everyone. Also, I was genuinely wondering what I pay taxes for ye know, Lazlo mentioned a number of things and I was thinking no I paid for that myself. That was all.
January 30, 2012 at 5:09 am |
ah fair enough, i’m not trying to bully you.
January 30, 2012 at 1:46 pm |
I wasn’t trying to argue with you, Nonny.I was just laughing at you.
Anyway, I forgive you.