Psych unit to be smokefree

Kensington Psychiatric Unit registered nurse Debbie May (left) and Timaru Hospital's Smokefree Team co-ordinator Barbara Gilchrist are counting down the days until December 1, when the unit will be smokefree.

The Kensington Psychiatric Unit is the only part of Timaru Hospital which is not yet smokefree.

While people cannot smoke anywhere else on the hospital's premises, patients at the psychiatric unit can smoke on the unit's grounds or in the designated courtyard inside the facility.

However, soon they will not be able to smoke on the grounds at all and the ashtrays in the courtyard will be replaced with plants.

The unit would then be in line with the rest of the hospital's no-smoking policy, Timaru Hospital's Smokefree Team co-ordinator Barbara Gilchrist said.

The no-smoking rule will be implemented on December 1 to allow time for the Smokefree Team to inform the community.

Enforcing a no-smoking rule was a big step for the psychiatric unit as a "high proportion" of mental-health patients were smokers, Mrs Gilchrist said.

She estimated about 40 per cent of them were smokers, compared with about 20 per cent of the general public who were smokers.

Kensington Psychiatric Unit registered nurse Debbie May said it would be a challenge to prohibit patients from smoking as the culture of smoking had been accepted within mental-health facilities for a long time.

Mrs Gilchrist said internationally, psychiatric units were traditionally "hot beds" for smoking.

"It's something the workers have always done with their patients and something they have always encouraged patients to do.

"A lot of people learn to smoke at hospital. Smoking is often used as a reward for compliance. We must change that way of thinking."

She said it was not more difficult for mental-health patients to give up smoking than it was for the general public, because it was "hard for anyone".

Patients at the psychiatric unit will have nicotine replacement therapy to help them cope with any withdrawal symptoms they have from stopping smoking.

The Smokefree Team is teaching Kensington Psychiatric Unit staff how to assist patients with patches, lozenges and chewing gum containing nicotine to make the patients' transition away from smoking easier.

Mrs Gilchrist said when the patients stopped smoking they would require less medication.

"The drugs are metabolised faster when people don't smoke. Therefore the side effects from the drugs will lessen."

It will be up to patients whether or not they take up smoking again when they leave the psychiatric unit.

But the Smokefree Team would follow up on patients discharged from the psychiatric unit, eager to help any of them interested in staying smokefree, Mrs Gilchrist said.

Mrs Gilchrist and Miss May smoked for 20 years each.

They both gave up smoking a few years ago.

It was beneficial that both women had gone through the process of giving up, Miss May said.

"It means we know our goal [to stop mental-health patients smoking] is achievable."

- Cerisse Denhardt.