Won't Somebody Please Think of the Smokers?

Study of smoking habits at hospitals finds rules put addicted patients at risk.

Society's ever-growing crusade to stamp out smoking has led to a handful of unintended consequences at hospitals, with a new study suggesting that rules preventing people from smoking on hospital grounds could endanger the lives of addicted patients. The study examined smoking habits among staff and patients at the University of Alberta Hospital in Edmonton and the Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg. The first trend that the researchers noticed was that more often than not, rules against smoking near entrances or on hospital grounds were usually ignored, both by staff and patients. But when the rules were followed, patients would have to walk off of grounds to light up, and in freezing Winnipeg and Edmonton winters, that led to frozen IV tubes, broken electronic monitoring equipment, and one instance of a wheelchair-bound patient getting locked out of the hospital. Other patients simply tried smoking indoors. The study concludes that considering the threats posed to addicted patients, hospitals ought to treat smoking like a drug addiction and not simply a bad habit. Hospitals were also urged to find ways to accommodate smokers while simultaneously trying to wean them off the habit.