I don't think there are many that could argue that the smoking ban was brought in on the flimsiest of evidence. No matter what the righteous tell you, they had to manipulate the figures into a mish-mash before they could even produce a statistically-insignificant level of risk ... indoors.
If Government had tabled a vote on banning smoking in the open air, I think we can safely assume that it would have been trashed. Even this pathetic pile of myopic malingerers at Westminster would have seen through that one.
It doesn't stop our (ahem) wildly-successful and not-at-all wasteful NHS throwing our NI contributions at a problem that doesn't exist though, does it?
Patrols aim to stop staff and patients flouting the no-smoking rule in the grounds of two hospitals in Cumbria.
From Monday, all entrances and car parks at the Cumberland Infirmary in Carlisle and West Cumberland Hospital, Whitehaven, will be regularly checked.
A ban on smoking anywhere in the hospital or its grounds, was put in place in July 2007, but there have many reported incidents of it being ignored.
The health trust said this had been causing distress to non-smokers.
North Cumbria University Hospitals NHS Trust is one of those moronic NHS bodies throughout the country that have decided that a blanket indoor ban which was not voted on democratically by the public, means that they can bring in a blanket outdoor ban, which ... err ... has not only not been democratically voted on by the public, but also has no valid scientific justification, and is unenforceable in law.
Unfortunately, with all the things that NCUH NHS Trust could be spending money on. You know, the usual stuff, curing patients, buying scanners for their hospitals, stopping killing people every now and then, things like that, they choose instead to spend our money on "Hit Squads" to tackle smoking on hospital grounds.
New smoking patrols are today being launched at north Cumbria’s hospitals in a bid to stop those who continue to ignore a high-profile ban.
Bosses at Carlisle’s Cumberland Infirmary and the West Cumberland Hospital, Whitehaven, banned smoking on their premises – both inside and out – in July 2007.
Until now the ban has not been policed, but following complaints from members of the public, bosses have decided to step up their efforts.
I dunno, but perhaps it hasn't been policed before because it isn't a fucking law? Now, however, the efforts are being stepped up. All of it detracting from what these dickheads should be doing. That is, concentrating (and spending their finite supply of funds) on curing people within their walls, not persecuting those outside.
Don't you fuckers EVER talk about certain lifestyles costing the NHS x amount of pounds again when you are spunking what you do have up the wall so gratuitously.
Seriously, is this not the biggest argument ever against the NHS? Enforcing a non-law, using our money to do it, which without any doubt whatsoever, diverts funds from what they are actually there to do. Unless I have got something wrong somehow and the real reason we pay our national insurance is so that some jackbooted troll can be paid to wander around a car park and stop someone smoking in their own car while waiting for a friend or relative.
No, honestly, I'm not joking. That's what they said.
Patrols will be at both hospital sites from today, focusing on all entrances, including outside accident and emergency units, areas behind buildings and car parks.
Those exhaust fumes are fine, it's just a smoker with his windows shut that is the problem. And guess what? It's still not a law, so if you tell them to shove their head up their arse, what can they do? Not a lot.
Good fucking grief.
8 comments:
"...if you tell them to shove their head up their arse, what can they do? "
This, perhaps...?
This is news?
The bansturbators at my local hospital banned smoking INSIDE THE GROUNDS on 1 July 2007. And their grounds are quite big, as in ten acres, perhaps, with a hospital in the middle.
Dick, you've been invited to join National Death Service blog, could you cross post this one?
Maybe more, maybe thirty acres. It's difficult to guess with all those buildings on.
"...but following complaints from members of the public..."
The above comment reminds me of an experience I had last September. I was in Spain, Benidorm as a matter of fact. I was standing at the bottom of some hotel steps. The sun was shining, it was a main road lined with hotels and tat shops. A busy road, teeming with cars and taxis, buses and mopeds. I was standing on a broad sidewalk, also teeming with people, deciding which direction to pursue. I was suddenly aware that a mother and daughter were passing by, and as they were getting near, the mother said to her daughter "hold your breath" as she glared at me taking a drag from my cigarette!!!
If the NHS Patrol were motorised then they could have the backing of law. By approaching the heinous smoker in their van they would criminalise him by virtue of being smoked at " within 5 metres of any door, window or opening of this working space " ( ie the patrol van itself ).
The same would be true if you were enjoying an after dinner smoke in your own garden up a 100 yard private drive and the gas man drove up to read your meter.
It would also be true if you were wandering home pissed and smoking after a night out clubbing and walked by an unattended taxi, no matter tht the driver was sound asleep indoors at the time.
How long before they outlaw smoking in the street ?
I don't know about shoving their heads up their arses Julia. Brushes and mops would be better placed, inside some of these filthy hospitals.
No wonder all theses bugs survive, when all that matters is giving Jobsworths unjobs. Thank you Dick for putting it so well, it just beggers bloody belief.
mandyv freedom2choose.info for smokers and non-smokers alike, fighting for choice and TRUTH.
No-one owns the air, not even those pumped up holier-than-thou antis.
Tim, last time I went to Spain, I never came across that once, how sad, if the intolerance starts over their.
"Tim, last time I went to Spain, I never came across that once, how sad, if the intolerance starts over their."
I did say it was Benidorm haha the Levante side. They were British holidaymakers.
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