No Smoking VA Medical Facilities

[mso489]

Yesterday while doing something else, I heard a brief NPR radio news item that reported that U.S. Veterans Affairs medical facilities have gone entirely no-smoking. They were never open smoking facilities, but have long had smoking areas. Now they join most civilian hospitals and other medical campuses in going entirely no-smoking. With the volatile gasses and requirements for sterility, and as a vet, I can accept this, but I think it can be used as a precedent for other care facilities declining to have any smoking areas at all, which seems a hardship for patients at long-term care facilities where people have few enough pleasures left in life as it is. Can't have pets, can't have conjugal visits, can't have an alcoholic beverage, can's smoke a pipe. That'll kill you if nothing else does. Freedom!!! Freedom!!!

 

[smokiespipesmoker123]

2 minds about this...

1. Private property, they can set any rules they like
But at the same time
2. Damned Puritan do-gooder virtual signaling scolds! Joyless authoritarian school marms. Shrieking moral panicking harpies!

I feel better/or not

 

[mso489]

I think best practices in medicine have long ago decreed medical facilities as non-smoking, so I think that is unchangeable barring other changes that might not be good, decline in living standards etc. But I agree that the justification for ruling others' habits and inclinations has to be reconsidered for sure. Wherein do we honor individual freedom and independence? These situations address that crucial issue. It's becoming too easy to step on personal choices, often surreptitiously, inadvertently, or by coercion.

 

[smokiespipesmoker123]

“Political tags — such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth — are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort.”

― Robert A. Heinlein

 

[Casual]

The blanket ban on smoking sometimes creates worse outcomes.

There are psychiatric facilities that make everyone safer if afflicted people check in for a while. However, many sufferers are smokers, and avoid stays because of the no-smoking rules.

Clearly this is a case of having a poorer societal outcome because no-smoking rules are inappropriately applied as a context-free good for all people in all cases.

 

[adui]

I'm only an occasional smoker, and never really paid attention to this aspect at the VA till the day my wife had to drop me off and run our daughter to work, then our other daughter to a doctor appointment, leaving me with idle time after my appointment at the VA medical center in Phoenix. I went out after my appointment looking for a smoking area and found that the entire property is non smoking.. I was bummed to say the least. Fortunately for me its a want, not an addictive need (yet...)

 

[BROBS]

At all the nursing homes around here you see people in wheelchairs and with walkers etc standing out on the sidewalk by the street smoking cigs. Is this really the best way to deal with these people?
I can understand not wanting people smoking everywhere all over the property... but to say they have zero place to smoke besides off the property?

 

[adui]

At all the nursing homes around here you see people in wheelchairs and with walkers etc standing out on the sidewalk by the street smoking cigs. Is this really the best way to deal with these people?
I can understand not wanting people smoking everywhere all over the property... but to say they have zero place to smoke besides off the property?

At risk of being political... Depending on who you ask, one might be told that these folks should be "helped" to be free of the addiction. EG forced to use quit smoking products.

 

[bnichols23]

I think best practices in medicine have long ago decreed medical facilities as non-smoking, so I think that is unchangeable barring other changes that might not be good, decline in living standards etc. But I agree that the justification for ruling others' habits and inclinations has to be reconsidered for sure. Wherein do we honor individual freedom and independence? These situations address that crucial issue. It's becoming too easy to step on personal choices, often surreptitiously, inadvertently, or by coercion.

Agreed. Is there no place for balance??

 

[adui]

Agreed. Is there no place for balance??

Sadly, in todays PC world I dont see balance at all..

 

[bnichols23]

I'm only an occasional smoker, and never really paid attention to this aspect at the VA till the day my wife had to drop me off and run our daughter to work, then our other daughter to a doctor appointment, leaving me with idle time after my appointment at the VA medical center in Phoenix. I went out after my appointment looking for a smoking area and found that the entire property is non smoking.. I was bummed to say the least. Fortunately for me its a want, not an addictive need (yet...)

The med school I work at is NS, but you can smoke in your car. IF you're more than 150' from any of the buildings. There's a slender window as you cross the street so as soon as I hit the gate on the way out I hit the Imco to fire up.

 

[bnichols23]

“Political tags — such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth — are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort.”

― Robert A. Heinlein

Heinlein was always a bit of a grump. -laugh-

 

[anantaandroscoggin]

bnichols23 said:


Agreed. Is there no place for balance??

Not in any way, shape or place that interferes with profits.

 

[daveinlax]

Agreed. Is there no place for balance??

Balance is, enjoy tobacco at home and chew a nicorette when you go to a medical center.

Not in any way, shape or place that interferes with profits.

A 10/15 min smoke break every hour eats up a lot of time. I work in a "tobacco free" work place but the numbers for the guys who still take smoke breaks are obvious.?

 

[mso489]

I don't limit it to smoke breaks. Being somewhat hyperactive, I often took walking breaks. For me, they should have been required. While walking, my brain circuitry cleared, I remembered assignments I might have forgotten, but better yet, I came up with some of my most productive ideas. People who don't take breaks or vacations and who don't sleep some hours at night miss huge resources this so-called "downtime" provides. Much of the brain's work is done on autopilot, when you are not intentionally doing anything, the less engaged with work the better. Also, my walking habit propelled me around the work place property and kept me in touch with changes and activities long before most people learned about them secondhand. A certain surprisingly large fraction of people don't even know their surroundings beyond their trip to the lunchroom and bathroom.

 

[diamondback]

Thinking back many years ago to my grunt-coder days, I lost count of the bug-fixes that occurred to me during smoke breaks. It was commonly known and many did so purposefully, which stands to reason as A) you’re away from your screen and problems go to the back-burner where they’re running on an independent thread B) Nicotine’s cognition enhancement.

But yes, the dread serpent is tightening its coils and one thing is certain: the invasive do-gooders are by no means going away. In fact they’re still just warming up.

 

[bent1]

.....but it’s ok to burn a bowl of dope.

 

[Bowie]

.....but it’s ok to burn a bowl of dope.

...and eat a large order or three of fries and a bag of plastic cookies in the VA cafeteria.

 

[mso489]

Ah, those plastic cookies, what a treat. Not.

 

[Richmond B. Funkenhouser]

And smokers think this is ok.. that's what makes it scary.