The signs at Maitland Hospital are there for all to see.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
One, erected by Maitland City Council, reads: “No smoking within 10 metres of this sign.”
Another Hunter New England Health sign says: “In the interests of better health, smoking is not permitted anywhere on this site.”
But drive past Maitland Hospital on any given day and see the procession of people – staff, visitors and patients (including pregnant women, and people in wheelchairs and on drips) – smoking, sometimes tight underneath the signs.
Walk almost anywhere around the hospital grounds and it’s hard to avoid cigarette butts littering the ground.
An exaggeration?
Take a look at today’s front page photograph.
Hunter New England Health claims it is committed to its smoke-free policy, that it supports staff and patients to stop smoking, and makes sure staff and patients are not exposed to other people’s tobacco smoke.
But one has to ask whether these are just words.
Patients and visitors alike have complained for years about smoking in the vicinity of the hospital.
Jamie McAllister – the subject of today’s report – says that sick people should not have to walk through a cloud of smoke.
He’s right.
He also believes it gives the hospital a bad image.
Right again.
No one is disputing that there are anti-smoking regulations in place; what is equally clear, however, is that these laws are not being adequately policed.
One has to wonder, who’s dishing out the fines?
