Who is right on burning issue? (From York Press)

Who is right on burning issue?

3:26pm Friday 21st September 2007

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I HAVE just read the article regarding St Leonard's Hospice banning smoking (Dying for a cig, The Press, September 18).

Dr Brian McGregor, vice-chairman of the York Local Medical Committee, says he can't see the logic in banning it.

Patients are bedbound, they are not able to enjoy food and drink, and smoking is one of the few pleasures they have left.

Neil Rafferty, a spokesman for Forest, an organisation that campaigns for the right to enjoy smoking, said the decision was "absolutely horrendous".

Four out of five York citizens made similar remarks - only Kerry Neal supported the decision. My comment to Dr McGregor, Mr Rafferty and the others who criticised the ban is simple.

The hospice is staffed by people who have made a choice to spend their professional lives caring for the dying. These nurses and support staff see day in, day out, the effect of smoking on people's health, and most of them don't want to go the same way.

Like all health workers, they are not the most highly-paid, most of the support staff are volunteers and patients are accepted free of charge - the costs being borne by charitable donations. Has anybody considered that it is the staff (who incidentally are not in their final days yet) who will be the long-term sufferers if smoking is allowed, and they have to inhale passively day in, day out?

I think Dr McGregor, Mr Rafferty and others are being somewhat selfish in their approach, and I for one fully support the hospice in this decision.

Name and address supplied.

* I READ Eric Wood's letter (Trust must set an example on fags, The Press, September 18) with dismay. Once again intolerance rears its head. He mentions that his rights are being put in second place and the "addict's" given preference.

I would like to remind Mr Woods that while he has to suffer a smoky atmosphere for 38 hours a week, he is paid to do so, and took the job 30 years ago knowing these were the conditions he would be working in.

The patients at Bootham Hospital, through no fault of their own, are resident there 24 hours a day, seven days a week. When Mr Wood finishes his shift he goes home and can control the environment he lives in to suit his needs, but this is not possible for his patients, for whom a blanket ban throughout the hospital means there is no choice at all.

While promoting his own rights he seems to be advocating that a complete reversal of policy puts his patients in the same situation he finds intolerable for himself. I really don't see why one room set aside for patients to smoke in is such a problem for him.

While I understand the dangers of passive smoking and can sympathise with his position, I am also aware that, as a non-driver, I am forced to breathe in exhaust fumes that I can't escape from, no matter where I go in this country.

In the present climate of "let's vilify the smokers" it's easy to forget that it's not only smoking that causes illness and disease.

Lesley Eastman, Western Terrace, New Earswick, York.

* ERIC Wood's excellent letter in The Press very neatly answers those people - in the same edition - who are trying to overturn the ban on smoking at St Leonard's Hospice.

While having every sympathy with the patients in the hospice and their loved ones visiting, what about the many terminally-ill non-smokers who are coming to the end of their lives? Don't they have a right to end their days in a smoke-free atmosphere, and to be attended by staff whose skin and clothes don't smell of smoke of previous patients, in a room whose carpets, curtains and furniture doesn't give off the whiff of old baccy?

That said, I can't see why a smoking lounge can't be made available at St Leonard's. Like all rules, there should be some flexibility, and if a person's dying wish is for the comfort of a cigarette, then no one, and certainly not an anti-smoking dinosaur like me, should begrudge them it.

Cynthia Glasby, Southfields Road, Strensall, York.

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