Hospital patients who are smokers are being stigmatised in a way other addicts are not, Peter Barron says.
Mr Barron, a member of the Otago and Southland District Health Boards' community and public health committee, told its meeting in Invercargill yesterday, rather than having patients standing around hospital entrances smoking, a better solution was needed.
Heroin addicts, or those on methadone, were not treated that way. Services were provided for them.
"We keep talking about it and do nothing about it."
Chairman Errol Millar said when he approached any main exit at Dunedin Hospital he had to take a deep breath and walk on to avoid inhaling the smoke.
It was, however, a magnificent example to young people, showing them why they would never want to take up smoking, he said.
Regional chief executive Brian Rousseau said there was a strong national view hospital premises should be smoke-free, but that needed to be backed up with a mechanism for helping people to stop smoking.
He noted that one of the revised health targets was requiring boards by July next year to provide 80% of hospitalised smokers with advice and help to quit, rising to 95% by July 2012.
He did not see why the boards could not provide this at 100% "from day one".
This would require addressing the issue in a more proactive way with patients who smoked.
Similar targets to those for hospitals are to be introduced in the community setting through primary health organisations from July next year.
