SENSITIZE ©

Most of you may have heard about the Nurse who has been murdered this week, at work, in the grounds of St George Hospital.

She was (although not formally confirmed) having a fag break,she was at the back of the hospital building when the attack happened.

I work within the trust where this has happened. A lot of my fellow 3rd year students know this young lady and some were very close friends with her.

There has been a smoking ban placed in all hospitals within our trust. If we are caught smoking we can be sacked. Therefore, like most of us smokers we go to the back of buildings and hide during our breaks to have a fag. Staff shortages mean that for the most part, we take our breaks alone. Most smokers now go to the back of buildings and hide to have a quick fag, alone and at all hours of the day and night due to shift-work.

We work at risk within the buildings (most of us have been treatened at some time or another). Outside we are like sitting ducks.

I know smoking is antisocial and bad for my health but it is my choice to smoke and I am addicted to smoking.
I prefer to smoke away from non-smokers and do so most of the time. The government who are at the root of this smoking ban still has smoking rooms provided at their place of work.

Nursing and medical staff have little protection whilst at work, most measures are to protect the public, not us. Apart from personal opinions I have never heard any good reasons as to why we are not given a designated smoking area.

A woman is dead as a result of these 'safety measures' all because she had to hide her addiction!

jo wrote:Most of you may have heard about the Nurse who has been murdered this week, at work, in the grounds of St George Hospital.

She was (although not formally confirmed) having a fag break,she was at the back of the hospital building when the attack happened.

I work within the trust where this has happened. A lot of my fellow 3rd year students know this young lady and some were very close friends with her.

There has been a smoking ban placed in all hospitals within our trust. If we are caught smoking we can be sacked. Therefore, like most of us smokers we go to the back of buildings and hide during our breaks to have a fag. Staff shortages mean that for the most part, we take our breaks alone. Most smokers now go to the back of buildings and hide to have a quick fag, alone and at all hours of the day and night due to shift-work.

We work at risk within the buildings (most of us have been treatened at some time or another). Outside we are like sitting ducks.

I know smoking is antisocial and bad for my health but it is my choice to smoke and I am addicted to smoking.
I prefer to smoke away from non-smokers and do so most of the time. The government who are at the root of this smoking ban still has smoking rooms provided at their place of work.

Nursing and medical staff have little protection whilst at work, most measures are to protect the public, not us. Apart from personal opinions I have never heard any good reasons as to why we are not given a designated smoking area.

A woman is dead as a result of these 'safety measures' all because she had to hide her addiction!

Jo. Sorry it's taken me so long to respond to this post mate. I hadn't heard any news reports about it, still haven't. That said, clearly nurses should be demanding the right to work in safe and secure environments, always...

I don't know if community arts would be the best medium to address this, but definitely, nurses should be working together to have their voices heard on this count...

Some-one has been charged with her murder, an 18 year old local boy.

Our trust is going to address it at the next meeting.

The Romford Recorder has printed an article last week on behalf of her brother, laying the blame on our trust.
I will be bringing the issuse up with our union at the next meeting.

I may get the ball rolling on our unions awards presentation night at the end of this month.

I just wanted others on here to know about it. I have been told by patients and friends that she was a good nurse, down to earth and a very nice girl.

There were at some hospitals I've visited outbuildings that resembled bus shelters where smokers could go at one point, personally I thought that this was a good comprimise - a well lit, high visibility area that was away from the entrances and paths too and from the hospital, that provided protection against the worst that the weather could throw at you.

I have no issue with smoking bans inside buildings (though I draw the line at smoking in all pubs - I still feel that that should have been left to the market to decide), but having such draconian measures as you have described, whereby one can be sacked for smoking to me at least appears ludicrous. So long as you do it in your break time, and away from the building entrances, whats the problem (Like Nurses don't have enough shit to deal with)? (Remind me again, who it is that produces the single largest chunk of the funds for the NHS? Oh yes, thats right, revenue from tax on tobacco.. IE Smokers).

Heh, its ironic, if everyone stopped smoking tomorrow, the NHS would collapse. Yet all I hear is about how much smoking is costing the NHS....

the_leander wrote:There were at some hospitals I've visited outbuildings that resembled bus shelters where smokers could go at one point, personally I thought that this was a good comprimise - a well lit, high visibility area that was away from the entrances and paths too and from the hospital, that provided protection against the worst that the weather could throw at you.

I have no issue with smoking bans inside buildings (though I draw the line at smoking in all pubs - I still feel that that should have been left to the market to decide), but having such draconian measures as you have described, whereby one can be sacked for smoking to me at least appears ludicrous. So long as you do it in your break time, and away from the building entrances, whats the problem (Like Nurses don't have enough shit to deal with)? (Remind me again, who it is that produces the single largest chunk of the funds for the NHS? Oh yes, thats right, revenue from tax on tobacco.. IE Smokers).

Heh, its ironic, if everyone stopped smoking tomorrow, the NHS would collapse. Yet all I hear is about how much smoking is costing the NHS....

I am sick of people trying to protect me from myself. It don't work and never will.

These smoking rules have been filtered down from our dear government. The same government who still provide smoking area's inside buildings for their employees. Aint it always, do as I say not as I do.

Our trust has a £24million deficit, with an estimated 650 full-time jobs to be slashed. So I would have thought that the public seeing us smoking in our uniforms should be the least of their worries.

Or it could be a nice easy way of not paying redundancy to staff (lots of us smoke).

I think Dylan Moran got it right in his Monster concert a while back. "Everybody knows that government officials will be found dead in ditches with cigarettes stubbed out on their foreheads".

That'd be cool...

Lugh wrote:I think Dylan Moran got it right in his Monster concert a while back. "Everybody knows that government officials will be found dead in ditches with cigarettes stubbed out on their foreheads".

That's be cool...

You know i'm not into violence Mr Lugh.

Premature natural causes will do!

jo wrote:

Lugh wrote:I think Dylan Moran got it right in his Monster concert a while back. "Everybody knows that government officials will be found dead in ditches with cigarettes stubbed out on their foreheads".

That's be cool...

You know i'm not into violence Mr Lugh.

Premature natural causes will do!

Sounds perfectly natural way for such scumbags to go to me


Well that and appearing to have been put up against a wall and shot that is...

the_leander wrote:
Sounds perfectly natural way for such scumbags to go to me


Well that and appearing to have been put up against a wall and shot that is...

Yeah. as long as the knife and spear holes look like bullet wounds, where's the problem..?

Lugh wrote:

the_leander wrote:
Sounds perfectly natural way for such scumbags to go to me


Well that and appearing to have been put up against a wall and shot that is...

Yeah. as long as the knife and spear holes look like bullet wounds, where's the problem..?

And leave an empty pack of paracetamol for the press to find.

jo wrote:
And leave an empty pack of paracetamol for the press to find.

You'll never find headache tablets in a pet shop...

Wanna know why?

Oh, alright then...

Because the; 'parrots eat them all'...

What was that?