Hospital smoking ban is inhumane

WITH the outright ban on smoking in psychiatric hospitals being in effect for over a year now, even the old and infirm have to smoke in the hospital grounds in all weathers.

The majority of patients 
face enforced detention of months rather than weeks, with a considerable number being long-term, ie years. Patients under supervision ­often have to wait hours before staff find time to escort them to get a smoke, with those very seriously disturbed not allowed out of their ward at all.

There are very few home comforts in psychiatric hospitals; it is an extremely distressing environment. The old smoking lounges were places to socialise and to smoke in relative comfort whenever you felt in need of a cigarette.

With very few exceptions, psychiatric patients are not criminals. They have not been sentenced by a court of law. Yet even prisoners can smoke in their cells. Where is the 
justice in this? What happened to the ethos of a caring NHS? Smoking lounges should be reinstated on humanitarian grounds alone.

George McGregor, Aberdeen