Freedom of choice maybe?

Today in a newspaper report Grampian NHS showed some remarkable common sense for once and it produced this headline:-

Smoking ban 'could cause huge problems'

NHS Grampian, like all other NHS Trusts are duty bound, now the age of austerity is upon us, to save money wherever possible. Of course none of us want to see front line services go for we cannot do with a shortage of nurses & doctors.

We are, as a nation, living longer than ever before thus will need more looking after within that longevity.

Equally so, being newly disposed to austerity, hospitals should not be wasting
thousands of Scottish taxpayers £'s on smoking shelters and (in odd cases) smoke wardens, therefore NHS Grampians medical director is paving the way for common sense to prevail. Link

Dr Roelf Dijkhuizen, who is reviewing the effectiveness of the board’s tobacco policy said patients addicted to smoking could not be expected to “take their drip and go and stand at the bus station” to have a cigarette.

Now here we have a man of compassion, a man who respects his fellow man's choices and situations.

He told a board members in Aberdeen yesterday the focus should be on providing more designated smoking areas. but said it was not as simple as putting up additional shelters, which could cost up to £150,000.

Now here we also have a man capable of thinking beyond this present day health freak government!

He said it was "important to think imaginatively about alternative, and cheaper, options and hoped to be able to involve patients and staff in the process."

Here we come to the crux of the matter - cost!

Now let me think here a minute...building materials cost money, planning permission costs money, (sorry peeps, bear with me) builders & labourers cost money so what the hell can we do? Hmmm.....hmmm (and even more thought!).....Hmmm!

Eureka!

However, I am not sat in a bath , not naked and neither do I need to charge through the streets of Syracuse or London, Aberdeen, Cardiff or anywhere else for that matter with my answer to this knotty problem, for as Archimedes found: the answer to be blindingly simple!

To save all financial wastage and 'ugly bus stops' all over the place why not simply designate one room per ward or floor of each hospital. For the purists I suppose that such 'designated smoking rooms' can be legally enforced to have two doors by which to enter (which creates a sort of mini lobby between smoking room and main passageway) and they must also have at least two windows that open which would allow the 'freshly' polluted air from the traffic below to 'cleanse' the new, innovative smoking rooms. It could even be determined that smoking rooms had to be positioned on the corners of a hospital building so that windows adjacent to each other could be opened to allow a better 'flow' of polluted air throughout!


Dr Roelf Dijkhuizen also stated, “I’m not a fan of shelters. They are ugly bus stops and extremely expensive. Maybe we will designate an area where we will have to do no building work. Rather than spending £150,000, we should look at alternative ways of providing designated areas without forcing people to stand in the rain.”

Apply all the above and you satisfy all criteria set out by the good Dr!
 
I hope you all note that he doesn't want people standing out in the rain, because he obviously understands that rain equals dampness, which leads to colds and other sniffily complications, severely enhances bronchial problems, certainly leads to pneumonia amongst the weak & elderly and could therefore be a prime cause of death-a cause that is sanctioned by our own very own government. I wonder what "call me death, sorry, Dave" thinks of that scenario?

We do, at long last, have a leading medical light who acknowledges that education is the correct approach to something that is only a real problem to a very small number of people-those that don't like the smell of tobacco. Totally banning the art of smoking under the pretext of saving lives is, basically, bollocks-and the health lobby know it but have managed to brainwash most of the political scene and most of the populace. They will never prove that the absence of SHS will save 4,000 lives per year anymore than they will find a death certificate with SHS as causation on it! You see folks, now that we need to be exceedingly austere (perhaps Mr Kipling should be in charge!) nonsensical expenditure on that which is not really a problem is coming under question-and increasingly will do so!

From their position 6 months ago logic has set in and Dr Roelf Dijkhuizen is to be mightily applauded for he is not only looking after hospital funds but ALL patients as well!