WITH regards to no smoking in hospital grounds. People smoke for different reasons with stress being one of them. Friends and relatives visiting hospital to see the terminally ill, or others with serious illness, are under such pressure that they may find a smoke eases the tension.
After a long and stressful bedside vigil, and not wanting to go home, making smokers leave the hospital grounds for a smoke lacks compassion to say the least.
If you are elderly or disabled and find comfort in a cigarette, life could end for those you care for as you are off the hospital grounds and too far away to be called back in a hurry. - George Sowerby, High Etherley, Bishop Auckland.
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