Vote for full smoking ban

Mike McAlevey
Mike McAlevey
Locked-in Wakari Hospital mental health patients will no longer be exempt from Southern District Health Board's smoking ban, the board's hospital advisory committee decided yesterday.

The move is subject to approval by the full board when it meets today.

Staff succeeded in overturning the exemption board member Richard Thomson has vociferously defended. Patients at Wakari have been allowed to smoke in designated outdoor areas if they are not permitted to leave hospital grounds.

Yesterday, Mr Thomson was the sole vote against the move, and spoke passionately in an attempt to sway fellow committee members.

Mr Thomson said it was an ethical issue, and he did not doubt the board had a legal right to prohibit smoking.

A total ban constituted treating people without informed consent, at a time when they had had their liberty removed.

He said he hated smoking, but did not believe mental health patients should not have the right to smoke.

Board member Dr Branko Sijnja spoke in support of the motion, saying other patients, such as those in isolation for infection control or in intensive care, were also stopped from smoking as they were unable to leave the grounds.

Dr Sijnja said the board had a duty to improve the physical health of mental health patients, and stopping them from smoking would help.

Board member Dr Malcolm Macpherson said the only issue for him had been whether clinical benefits outweighed drawbacks, and he was happy to take the word of staff that the move was positive overall.

Mental health medical director Dr James Knight said health boards had a duty to care for patients and staff, and the move was needed to make the DHB completely smoke-free.

As it was, the situation was absurd, and Southern needed to match moves in other boards to enforce total bans.

Patients could smoke once they were discharged, although staff were keen to see them quit and would support them to do so, Dr Knight said.

Dunedin mental health consumer group Incite spokesman Mike McAlevey had sought permission to address committee members about the group's opposition.

The board should not force patients to give up smoking against their will.

It should instead make the mental health service safer, and the wards more interesting, so patients would not wish to smoke, he said.

Mr McAlevey was concerned by the number of patient suicides in the board's mental health service, and its high level of electroconvulsive therapy compared with other boards.

The board is meeting in Oamaru this week, for the first time, to try to connect with outlying areas.

No-one from the general public came to yesterday's meeting at the Kingsgate Hotel Brydone, although two Waitaki Health Service Trust representatives attended. Nine staff and the full board travelled from other centres.

 

Add a Comment

 

Advertisement