There does not appear to be any large consumer group concerned about the gradual progress towards Southland' Hospital's inpatient mental health unit becoming smoke-free, the Southern District Health Board's hospitals' advisory committee was told yesterday.
Chairman Paul Menzies, commenting on a report saying the Southland unit planned to be smoke-free by next January, said it had been " going down that path" for some time before the merger of the Otago and Southland boards.
Unlike in Otago, he was not aware of any large consumer group adverse reaction to the approach taken.
Richard Thomson, who last year controversially successfully fought for locked-in mental health patients at Wakari Hospital to be allowed to smoke, said he did not feel comfortable about the Southland situation.
When he had taken a stance on the Wakari Hospital situation, consumers of the health service rang him in support.
If the consumer group in Southland were from "a different gene stock" and were comfortable and right in behind the smoke-free move he would not make a fuss about it, he said.
Mr Thomson said while he did not support smoking by any hospital patients, those who were admitted to hospital for treatment and not permitted to leave the premises were in a different category from anybody else.
He said he did not feel comfortable with the Southland position, but had to accept that two cultures had merged under the one board and decisions made before the merger had to be respected.
However, if the Southland situation became a "rationale for Otago going the same way" he would have to "swallow another couple of Coldrex and gird my loins" (he is, apparently, suffering from a cold or flu).
