Let stressed-out people have a puff outside hospitals, for pity’s sake

While I no longer smoke, I do remember that gnawing feeling of needing to, so I’m not sure about Wales proposing to become the first country in the UK to ban smoking in outdoor spaces such as schools, playgrounds and hospitals.

School and playgrounds are one thing, but outside hospitals seems different. Smoking is already banned on most Welsh hospital grounds, but it’s hard to get people to comply.

By 2019, anyone caught smoking would face a fine. And, you might think, so what? Smoking has no place in hospitals. However, for smokers, it does. Hospitals can be very stressful environments, and when a smoker is stressed they tend to need to smoke. When they can’t light up, their situation becomes even more stressful, and it wouldn’t exactly be the best time to try to give up. In this way, asking people not to smoke anywhere on hospital grounds becomes a major issue. If someone smokes heavily, this could even affect their decision to go into hospital. While it makes total sense to deter young people from smoking, and also to encourage adults to take steps to give up, such bans verge on draconian.

While Britain still has smokers, is a designated smoking area outside a hospital such a terrible thing? It’s even arguable that smokers deserve a tiny break. The vast majority of smokers have complied with new laws with barely a peep – they’ve done as instructed, regarding smoking in public areas, trudging outside, to dolefully puff away in all weathers. The poor sods.

Now it seems they won’t even be able to smoke in a designated spot outside hospitals – the most stressful places on Earth. Evoking human rights may be stretching it (just a tad), but there’s no need for all compassion to go up in smoke.