Moves to stop smoking anywhere on the Wakari Hospital site should proceed with caution, Richard Thomson suggests.
He told the Otago District Health Board hospital advisory committee he chairs that the situation of long-term mental health patients was a "substantially different kettle of fish" to short-stay hospital patients.
Some mental health patients might live in hospital care for months or years, which was different from a patient going into hospital for three nights.
In some cases these mental health patients would not be able to leave the grounds to smoke.
Mr Thomson said he did not want his comments to be seen as advocating smoking and he supported those who were doing everything possible to assist people to give up cigarettes.
However, he asked that any plans to remove smoking areas for long-term mental health patients came to the hospital advisory committee of the new board for approval.
Mr Thomson warned that he would vote against it if he considered the plans "unreasonable for the circumstances of this particular group".
His comments arose from a report to the committee which said that a project group had been developed to move from having historical temporary exempted smoking areas on the Wakari site and psychiatric services building areas to having no smoking areas at all.
The report said this needed to be happen in a considered manner, because it was a complex issue.
Women's, children's and public health group manager Pip Stewart said Ward 1A at Dunedin Hospital was also recognised as having particular issues about becoming totally smoke-free.
