The people’s soviet socialist republic of Wales is on the fast track to denormalising smokers – more so than even on this side of the Severn. The hospitals of Cwm Taf are now such an example. It’s bad enough being hospitalised – been there, done that – but if someone is a smoker, not being able to have a smoke simply makes matters worse. Okay, sure, we all are aware – well we should be – that tobacco ain’t good for us. Yes, yes, we know this already. However, in the grand scheme of things, a patient who needs a quick drag is not the end of the world. It is, however over in the socialist soviet state of Cymru. Y’see, there are now patrols to stop people having a sly drag.
Senior managers at hospitals across much of the south Wales valleys are patrolling the grounds in an attempt bid to enforce a smoking ban.
Clearly those senior managers are significantly under-employed. Here, then is an opportunity to make some significant savings in the health budget.
No-one is allowed to smoke on any of its sites, including hospitals, car parks, clinics and health centres.
Prince Charles Hospital, Royal Glamorgan Hospital, Ysbyty Cwm Cynon and Ysbyty Cwm Rhondda are affected.
So, never mind that you’ve gone in for a procedure that has nothing to do with smoking related illness, if you are dying for a fag, too bad, the petty jobsworths of Cym Taf are not going to let you, and instead of managing – which is what they are paid to do – they are going to patrol the grounds to catch you like the naughty school child that you are.
Oh, but it gets worse. The Stasi would have been wetting themselves over this one:
A hotline has also been set up for patients and staff to report people who are smoking on the premises.
There you go – the Gestapo and the Stasi worked in exactly the same way as this. So, please, no cries of “Godwin”. These people are evil, make no mistake about it. What other people put into their bodies is none of their concern, yet they have a hotline so that nasty little busybodies and snitches can report them.
The ban comes after as the Welsh government’s Tobacco Action Plan aims to reduce smoking to 16% by 2020.
This means, for instance, that 26,000 smokers in the Cwm Taf area must quit in the next eight years.
See? “must quit”. Not we would like people to quit, but they have set a target and that target means that people must quit. Never mind that tobacco is a legally obtainable product and that people are supposed to have the liberty to consume it if they so wish – the despots of the Welsh anti-smoking lobby have pronounced and they will do all that they can to eradicate the personal liberty to do with one’s own body what one pleases.
I posted this on Subrosas site earlier this week, but your subject matter makes it worth a repeat;
My Verein (Association, or “club”) consists more or less totaly (I, being the only exception), of Ossis. 70% of them ex NVA (National Volksarmee (East German army), and border guards. The rest Stasi. One of whom was an Oberstleutnant (Lieutenant Colonel). (The Verein is 150 to 200 people strong)
I have kept them up to date on what is happening in the U.K, re “security/surveillance”.
Congratulations U.K!
You have the REAL Stasi seal of approval! EVERY one of them is of the opinion that they only wish their back teeth, eyes and arms, that THEY had had such a system, and such all encompasing laws.
Read that again “The STASI (and we are talking the real thing here. NOT some cocky watchman, who gets called “STASI” because he puts a ticket on your car) think your laws regarding surviellance and “Security” are BETTER, than those of the DDR!
And note, they have not seen your post re Wales today, LR.
Thing is, people are being asked to snitch on others who haven’t even broken any law.
We are hoping that there will be several NHS workers who will join us each day for walkabouts during their lunchbreaks, free quit kit boxes will be handed out with a map of the Hospital grounds that is covered by the ban.
More taxpayer money being wasted on tobacco control where it is not necessary.
Will they have some sort of arm-band and….. maybe a horsewhip?
And if they tell you to go f*** yourself? Whet are you going to do, rip out their drips and refuse to treat them?
Don’t give ’em ideas…
I wasn’t aware the NHS are Councils or British Rail and can make their own by-laws. Aren’t hospitals still a ‘public’ place, Trust or not? It is perfectly legal to smoke in the open air in a ‘public’ place.
If I’m wrong, please advise. If I’m not you can go hang. The most you can do is ASK people. If they refuse, tough.
I presume you weren’t talking to me?
Erm…. No. wrong place, sorry.
If it is council/NHS, then “Public”/”Private” is questionable. Although I am sure there must be legal presedence somewhere. If it is trust, I would say it is “Private”, and belongs to the trust members.
This means that the members must be asked to vote on any changes in rules.
Any one want a bet, that if it IS a trust, you stand as much chance of finding that they put this to a membership vote, as Bin Laden would have of walking unscathed through Times Square on a new years eve? 😕
Going to hospital for a smoker is like being confronted by an antismoking cult utterly bent on the smoker’s “conversion”. If you want to smoke, you have to walk a considerable distance off the grounds – in any weather – for no reason other than the medical administration does not approve of the habit. And the medicos will take the opportunity to prescribe useless NRT or, worse, dangerous Champix, to get with the [antismoker] “program”; it keeps the cash registers chinking over for the pharmaceutical companies.
The situation is pitiful. It is entirely contrary to the psychology of healing, is a sickly social-engineering exercise, and is contrary to the Hippocratic Oath. That should give some indication of the black hole that the medical establishment is in.
Just to be awkward … err the Hospitals are the PROPERTY of the local Haalth Authority – their gaff, their rules.
However, even though I detest smoking, mainly because I don’t want to breathe someone else’s, this really IS a step too far.
The encouragement to spy on others is the really nasty bit here, because, we can see what is going to come next, can’t we?
Yeah, I was waiting for that one to come up. That doesn’t alter the facts regarding their behaviour – patients are effectively captive and it doesn’t alter the little fact that we pay for this…
Hospital Trusts have conceded (via FOI requests) that they have no powers to prevent patients and visitors smoking in hospital grounds. Their strategy relies on intimidation, harassment and public ignorance of the smoking ban legislation (as per the denormalisation process). One excuse is having the right to remove smokers for causing a public nuisance, which is why anyone challenged should remain calm and polite, remind them they are breaking no law and, if necessary, point out to security that they could be reported to the police for assault if they resort to physical abuse and/or threatening language.
I thought that we fought wars to prevent this type of thing? I am ashamed to share a species with these people. They make my flesh crawl, as do those in Westminster who have allowed this shameful state of affairs to come about.
Maybe me, but I can not see anywhere what actualy HAPPENS to the people that are “caught”, are they forcibly removed to the closed nutcase ward? Are they given a good kicking behind the bike sheds? What can the dictatorship, also known as “management” actualy DO? Order them to pick up their beds and walk?
This was a letter to the Irish Times by a retired hospital doctor. The emphasis is on *retired* because it seems that those in the system that might feel likewise dare not rock the diktat boat, such is the administration’s sickly control.
“Sir, – I have never smoked, but as a retired hospital doctor I am horrified by the primitive savagery of the HSE’s new edict forbidding smoking anywhere within the boundaries of a hospital in the Republic.
The HSE seems unaware that addiction to a drug alters brain receptors so that the sufferer is left with an insatiable desire for more. Renouncing such a drug is far more difficult than giving up chocolate for Lent.
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.
I have looked in dismay at the degradation heaped on smokers in our hospitals in recent years. Forced to huddle under an outdoor lean-to roof for a drag on a desperately needed cigarette, often with intravenous drips in their arms and frequently wearing only pyjamas and a dressing gown on a cold, wet day, now even this solace is to be denied to them.
Lepers in the dark ages received greater care and more love than our enlightened age allows to the poor, old, ill smoker.
If Minister for Health Dr James Reilly is worth his salt, he will overturn this appalling ruling immediately. Indeed he will go further and require hospitals to provide safe, warm and properly ventilated indoor smoking rooms for those sufferers who need them.
After all, even smokers are still our sisters and brothers. – Yours, etc,”
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/letters/2012/0114/1224310242616.html
And this from another article:
“Before he died, my father spent a few years in and out of James’s Hospital.
He used to say that the worst thing was the boredom, the endless tedium punctuated only by the ticking of the clock in his ward that used to drive him mad.
A voracious reader, he admitted that there are only so many books you can read in one day and while his body was failing, his mind was, on the whole, still active — and that’s where the ciggie break came in.
He admitted to me on one occasion that going for a smoke was the highlight of his day — not for the hit of the tobacco but because for him and all the other long-term patients, going for a smoke was a social occasion, a chance to get out of the bed, get out of the ward and have a chat and a fag with some of the others and, to be honest, I could completely see where he was coming from.
Because when my Da and his fellow incumbents met up for a smoke, they were no longer just patients with a numbered bracelet on their wrist, they were men again, individuals in their own right.
It was a vital outlet for someone who was going insane with the boredom and, as we all know, boredom leads to depression, which is the worst thing someone with cancer, or any other illness for that matter, can deal with.”
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/ian-odoherty/ian-odoherty-havent-patients-suffered-enough-without-this-hospital-smoking-ban-2913156.html
These meet and greet smokers events in the U.S are really useful if they are are conducted in the right manner with freebies given away , gums and patches and DVD’s along with a friendly chat with health staff do obtain great results in getting smokers engaged in stop smoking programs.
The emphasis is more of helping and advising rather than catching smoker red handed, only repeat offenders will be dealt with by security staff .
XX only repeat offenders will be dealt with by security staff . XX
“OFFENDERS”!?!?
HELLOOO. It is NOT fucking ILLEGAL. So WHAT is this utter fucking BOLLOX with “offenders”?
Tell you what laddie, one of these fucked up cocky watchman tried it on me, I would be going down for an “offence”, and for breaking the fucking noses off their faces and shoving it up their arses with a sharpened rose bush stem, so far, they will have to use their TOOTH brush to remove it. 👿
As FT points out, they are not committing any offence.
Lets be honest,the Welsh deserve the Stasi,Volkspolizei and KGB
Rain ,resevoirs,caravan sites, shut down pits and car park smoking bans.
next step,Snowdon a no smoking site
Glad to be Anglo,left Cymru in a pram.
Perhaps roving patrols of smoking gangs to counteract the smoking patrol folks!
Let em try and stop the smokers,they will need the police then and Oh what a media blitz thatd be!!!!
Furor,
I think the Ossis might admire the way that people are retarded enough to believe that we live in a democracy, without calling it the DDR. After the calamitous wnd to WWII, I suppose bread that a Russian’s pissed on is better than no bread at all. But I think that the Blockwarter predated the Stasi informer, albeit in an official capacity.
@Greg
“Just to be awkward … err the Hospitals are the PROPERTY of the local Haalth Authority – their gaff, their rules.”
Fair enough. Please explain why my landlord cannot permit smoking in HIS pub.
Moreover, it’s not their fucking property, it’s mine. I paid for it.
XX But I think that the Blockwarter predated the Stasi informer, albeit in an official capacity.XX
???
I have not spoken with a Blockwart, I have spoken with (ex)Stasi, so your remark is…. strange, not to say totaly irelevant.
Furor Teutonicus, I think 20 Rothmans means that the Nazis used the Blockwart to drum up support for their party before they came to power, and a hierarchy of office-holders was involved, not just IM. Perhaps he is pointing out that this sort of behaviour is not confined to one side of the political spectrum.
But Stasi and Nazi ARE one side of the political spectrum. 😕 ❓ 😕
In one sense, yes.
They are both ultra-authoritarian.
In another (left / right) they are opposites.
The insistence that political opinions are one-dimensional, when they are actually (at least) two is the source of much confusion, error and really bad mistakes.
“National SOZIALIST” is a bit of a give away, don’t you think?
Same commys, same bed, same shit on the blankets.
People call themselves socialists, but that doesn’t always mean that they are. I should thank Mr Tingey for his clarification; I always think of the political spectrum as a circle with the two extremes almost joined at the bottom. Their two political stances might be different, but I have to agree with you, Furor, that their behaviour towards those who don’t share their particular brand of politics is equally appalling.
XX People call themselves socialists, but that doesn’t always mean that they are. XX
Oh STOP IT!!! I am nearly pissing myself laughing here. The old “Oh well he is not a REAL…..(Add shitbag group, from Ice cream seller to the fuckin pope, and every twat, from communist to moussolinni, in between).)” joke.
WONDERFULL. Almost as good as the “Godwin” shite. 😐
I am not a socialist. Frank Field is. I have a lot of respect for Frank Field. The people at the political extremes would not repect anyone who did not fully agree with them.
If you pop over to CiF you will find plenty of people there calling themselves liberals…
Well in North Wales we have the high tech option of voices coming from a loudspeaker to tell you to stop smoking! I remember when they had smoking rooms in the hospital, now they don’t want you to smoke anywhere.
True!:grin: