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THE NO SMOKING policy at two of Dublin’s maternity hospitals is being flouted by patients and visitors, six years after it was announced the campuses would become smoke-free.
On 1 November 2013, the Coombe, the Rotunda and the National Maternity Hospital at Holles Street became completely tobacco-free campuses with building entrances, doorways and car parks all included in places where the ban was implemented.
All smoking shelters were dismantled or converted with cigarette bins also being removed from the hospitals in accordance with HSE policy.
Beaumont Hospital in Dublin also became a “tobacco-free campus” a year prior to this. However, TheJournal.ie spent 30 minutes outside the main entrance to the hospital’s building earlier this year and reported that the policy was being continuously flouted by patients and visitors.
A similar situation has become evident at the Coombe and the Rotunda in Dublin.
One morning last week, TheJournal.ie spent time outside the main entrance to the Coombe, the Rotunda and the National Maternity Hospital.
Evidence of the policy being flouting was evident at the Coombe and the Rotunda, while there was evidence to suggest a possibility of the policy being flouted at the National Maternity Hospital.
At the Coombe, TheJournal.ie stood within the grounds of the campus, outside the main door of the hospital.
From 10.25am to 10.45am, nine people were seen lighting up cigarettes on the campus of the Coombe hospital, outside the main entrance.
It was a busy morning outside the hospital, with patients, staff members and visitors coming and going.
Before entering the campus, a large sign is erected which reads: “This is a tobacco free campus. Please consider the health of others around you and do not smoke.” Numerous signs similar to the above were visible outside the main door of the hospital.
Dozens of cigarette butts were found along or near the pathway the main door to the hospital. More butts were found inside the gate to the campus.
Over the course of the 20 minutes, six people, some of whom were patients, were seen lighting up cigarettes on the campus before walking out onto path outside the hospital grounds.
One man was seen smoking just inside the gates of the hospital grounds.
Nearing the end of the 20 minutes two pregnant women, both of whom appeared to be patients and were wearing pyjamas, left the hospital building and lit cigarettes directly in front of one of the anti-smoking signs.
Two people were seen vaping.
The Coombe has received two complaints so far this year in relation to smoking, according to a hospital spokesperson.
“There are no-smoking signs which are clearly visible throughout the grounds to inform visitors that this is a non-smoking campus,” the hospital said in a statement.
Tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable death in Ireland, with almost 6,000 smokers dying each year from tobacco-related diseases, according to the HSE.
TheJournal.ie also spent 20 minutes outside the main entrance to the Rotunda hospital at Parnell Square. The Rotunda’s entrances faces onto a public path.
The Rotunda has a zone outside the main entrance, on the public path, which is an ambulance bay. This area, which is designated as a smoke-free area, is marked out with blue lining.
Here, a paramedic was seen standing in front of an ambulance while he vaped.
One man was seen standing in front of the doors of the main entrance while smoking a cigarette.
Another man was seen walking towards the doors of the hospital smoking a cigarette before throwing the butt on the ground beside the ambulance parked outside.
Numerous hospital staff were seen smoking near the vicinity of the main entrance, but remained outside the designated no-smoking zone outside the front doors.
Nearing the end of the 20 minutes, one woman stood directly in front of the doors smoking a cigarette.
TheJournal.ie also counted dozens of cigarette butts on the ground outside the main entrance within the no-smoking zone.
Since the beginning of this year, one complaint has been received by the Rotunda regarding cigarette butts outside the front of the hospital and “how untidy it made the general area look”, according to a spokesperson for the hospital.
In a statement to TheJournal.ie, a spokesperson for the Rotunda Hospital said “smoking is not allowed anywhere within the confines of the Rotunda campus” and that this is applicable to “all its employees, patients and visitors”.
The spokesperson said “this is policed and enforced”.
Speaking of the no smoking zone at the main entrance to the hospital, the spokesperson said: “The difficulty is this is a public pathway/thoroughfare and the Rotunda Hospital cannot police it and insist that people move on or stop smoking.”
The spokesperson said “the paths are cleared a number of times a day by portering staff”, but added: “Again, as this is a public pathway, it is impossible to be kept clean constantly.”
Finally, TheJournal.ie spent 20 minutes outside the National Maternity Hospital (NMH).
On Holles Street, a set of steps leads up to the main entrance of the NMH. The entrance to the NMH opens directly out onto the public road. The steps and ramp entrance are considered to be within the hospital grounds.
Similar to the two other hospitals, it appeared to be a busy morning at the hospital, with staff members, visitors and patients coming and going.
Numerous cigarette butts were found scattered along the path outside the main entrance. This area, it must be noted, is not considered to be the hospital grounds as it is a public path.
Beside the main door, there is a wheelchair accessible entrance. Numerous cigarette butts were found along the ramp to this door, as seen below. This area is within the hospital grounds.
Over the course of the 20 minutes, numerous staff members and visitors could be seen standing close to the main entrance of the hospital smoking cigarettes. However, they were just outside the hospital grounds.
At one point, a hospital worker in scrubs stood at the wheelchair ramp entrance while he smoked a cigarette.
In a statement to TheJournal.ie, a spokesperson to for the NMH said: “The National Maternity Hospital is a no smoking campus, and there are no smoking signs in the building and outside informing people of this.”
The spokesperson said “the rule is enforced very strictly on hospital grounds”.
“There is a blue line around the hospital perimeter, inside which smoking is not allowed,” they said.
“The hospital opens directly onto the street, and people smoking on the street are not on hospital property. However, if anyone is seen smoking on the steps or on the wheelchair ramp at the hospital entrance they are asked immediately to go to the street.”
Speaking back in 2013 when the smoking ban at the maternity hospitals was announced, Master at the Coombe Dr Sharon Sheehan said: “The health and best interest of patients and staff is at the heart of everything we do at the Coombe. By supporting a smoke-free environment, we are ensuring a healthier environment for staff, women and babies.”
Dr Rhona Mahony, Master of the NMH added: “Smoking causes so much disease and heartache. This is a wonderful opportunity for everyone to join together and help each other quit smoking. A large part of Ireland begins here at The National Maternity Hospital; let our babies grow up smoke-free.”
Six years later, it is now evident that the anti-smoking policies at Dublin’s three maternity hospitals are being flouted by patients, staff members and visitors.
As is detailed above, TheJournal.ie witnesses dozens of cigarette butts on the ground within the no-smoking areas of the hospitals, along with people smoking cigarettes.
Speaking to TheJournal.ie earlier this year about the situation at Beaumont Hospital, chairperson of ASH Ireland Dr Patrick Doorley said the hospital could “maybe target information campaigns” at visitors “advising them that they should not encourage their relatives or patients to be smoking outside, indeed, discourage them”.
“It’s hard to understand why people continue to smoke in that situation, it’s just not good behaviour, to be honest,” he said.
Support
Support is available at Dublin’s three maternity hospitals for people regarding smoking.
A smoking cessation midwife is employed at the Rotunda who accepts referrals from pregnant women who wish to engage in a cessation programme.
This midwife offers both face to face and phone support for pregnant women aiming to reduce or stop smoking during pregnancy.
A spokesperson for the Coombe said: “The people who are providing your antenatal care can help you. Let them know as soon as you can that you want to stop smoking. Your family doctor, midwife, practice nurse, public health nurse or pharmacist can all offer you advice and support while you are giving up smoking.”
At the National Maternity Hospital, patients who identify as smokers on their first visit are provided with information regarding the dangers of smoking during pregnancy. They are also directed to smoking cessation support services in their local area.
The HSE provides support options for smokers.
People can call the HSE National Smokers Quitline freephone on 1800 201 203 . People are also free text QUIT to 50100 or email support@quit.ie.
Further information and support is available from the HSE here.
The Department of Health declined to comment on the enforcement of non-smoking areas in hospitals.
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Husband waiting on update on wife’s 3 hour life saving operation sitting in a crammed waiting room full of noise and praying his life partner survives. Give him his cigarette ffs.
@Peter Cavey: and if he drinks should he be given drink? What if he wants to smoke inside?
Nobody is stopping him smoking, be he most go outside the grounds. Its very simple.
@Barry Somers: just so you know, what if and what about are the weakest forms of retort. Makes you sound argumentative and ineffective at debate. I’d stop doing it and try to be more objective if I were you.
@Peter Cavey: here’s a suggestion why don’t the hospitals create a smoking shelter that is away from the main entrance.
@Peter Cavey: Applying the most extreme circumstances possible is also a low argument
Pregnant women and newborns pass in and out of the entrance every minute. I’ll pass on you blowing smoke in my newborns face thanks, do it to your own if it’s ok with you
@Peter Cavey: no thanks. There are plenty of stressful situations in a hospital and I suggest it comes with the territory. Any stress certainly isn’t helped by a smoker sitting beside you. He/she can have his/her cigarette outside.
@Peter Cavey: Quote you ( Give him his cigarette ffs) And increase his chances of his new son or daughter watching their dad die a death of lung cancer way before his time .?
@Peter Cavey: you posed a hypothetical and he replied with one.
@Peter Cavey: smoking and that in a hospital???. Barry Somers is right.
@Peter Cavey: Your argument was also a ‘what if’, you just didn’t use those words at the beginning.
@filthypete: people having operations in hospital is hypothetical?
@Peter Cavey: not bothering.
Smoking policy being flouted in every hospital in the country in fairness,I’m a non smoker but the rules in these places are ridiculous
@Pete mc pete: Let me ask you a question? Would you feel the same way if you had a loved one being operated upon, you see a man, or woman, outside smoking a cigarette or two while wearing scrubs. Later that same person turns out to be the one who operated on your loved one, and reeks of cigarette smoke.
Did they change clothes, did they wash, should everyone who doesn’t smoke get a similar amount of time off each day?
@Arch Angel: Did they go to the toilet, did they wash their hands? Did they touch something else that had germs?
@Sal Paradise: True. However, when the staff are outside smoking in their scrubs it screams “no” to all the above.
@Arch Angel: wtf are you talking about
@Arch Angel: I was a RGN a non smoker all my life. Medical personnel are high on the scale when it comes to smoking. Tobacco is safe, it is the 2000 additives that cause the cancers. Google it. Only idiots.smoke.
@Patricia Mcnamara: No addicts smoke, get it right.
@Patricia Mcnamara: I don’t doubt you or your experience as a nurse. I said that if someone in scrubs were seen to be ignoring the law, smoking while wearing scrubs, this would indicate they’d ignore other requirements too. Handwashing etc.
Isn’t nicotine a principle product of tobacco, and isn’t nicotine an extremely deadly toxin? Hardly something you’d describe as safe?
OMG… Nothing to write about!
Go do some serious investigative journalism, smoking on campus, how shocking, would that be on the same level as fraudulently voting?
Good god what a monumental waste of time. Is this parody? The close up shots of cigarette butts, oh the horror. Reads like an April fool article.
@Gareth Keenan: as someone who doesn’t go near hospitals often, I welcome articles like this tha remind me how disgusting people are, at all times.
It also reminds me that, should I be in a hospital needing treatment myself, I should demand a non-smoker as a doctor if mine shows up stinking of smoke. I mean, if I’m in hospital, I’m already not doing well.. adding increased asthma and breathing difficulties to the mix, triggered by lingering smoke on a smoker are really not going to help.
And yes, if you have a ciggy outside, then come near me inside a building, I will know.. and if I’m ill, I will start struggling to breathe, as my asthma flairs up when I’m ill
If you smoke, and I do, waiting in a+e for endless hours while drunks and s€umbags get preference ahead of sick people a cigarette can sometimes be the only only thing to keep you sane. It’s a long walk from the a+e in Cavan general hospital to the gate to obey the rules, especially if you’re waiting with a child.
Beaumont is a smoke free campus but I still remember the sheer amount of butts outside the intensive care unit door there. For good reason too.
Its an unenforceable and stilly rule
Journal would be better chasing gangsters in sail eireann and leave joe public alone (a crime to smoke all right to cast a strangers vote in sail eireann)
@John Hartigan: it’s a joke they will never be able to stop it completely instead people move out a bit further, my brother in law died less then 2 weeks ago from lung cancer so it’s not a joking matter in his last couple of weeks all he wanted wa a fág and nó one was going to say no st luke’s have a garden and a little hut were they can go and I think all hospital should have a proper area away from the entrance for smokers, its an addiction for most and if someone really wants a smoke then they’ll get one regardless of rules
Amazing how people can not smoke for 4 hours on a flight plus time in airport but they cant walk an extra 10 mins out of courtesy for non smokers and other patients. I get that waiting around hospital is stressful but if you need a nicotine hit there are plenty of alternatives. just accept that you cant smoke in hospitals and it’s for a good reason.
Pregnant women smoking is disgusting smoking is disgusting anyway but it’s even worse looking at a pregnant woman puffing away on cancer sticks
What a waste of time this article is
Would be better if the smokers were given their smoke room back- disgusting to have to hold your breadth to enter the main front door of Beaumount hospital.
So they took away bins with ashtrays, resulting in butts on ground. Genius
Stop the tinternet
There’ll be drive by shootings next.
@Ronan Walsh: Drive by smoking would get an article tbf.
I have given up the cigs since 1980s I know how hard it is to give them up. I understand the HSE and the need for rules and regulations but come on to ban cigarettes from the grounds ? People are not going to be able to manage this law What penalties are they going to incur when apprehended ?
@Alan Scott: yet you would never dream of lightning up on a bus train or in an airport. Give the security guards the power to issue in the spot fines and it will soon stop. Provide free nicotine replacement alternatives for patients as they should not be smoking if unwell ,
I’m in and out hospitals regularly and seriously at times it’s like a scene from the industrial revolution outside the main doors smoke billowing around and above there heads “ welcome to Waterford university hospital this is a smoke free campus “ why don’t the hospitals a smoke IG shelter that’s outside say a accessible side door away from wards and offices and main entrance and if folk want to contribute to lung disease let them do it there but I don’t want your second hand smoke. I’ve grown up with my parents smoking and already have issues attributed to passive smoking.
BIG DITTO IN GALWAY NUHG smoking at front and rear entrance UNBELIEVABLE, and Not policed, it’s a JOKE.
Same thing here, they smoke outside the hospital like it’s a cure.
What did I just read
That was long winded…
And next in monumental problems facing the country…..
To think that people are actually paid to write this anti smoking rubbish. All that’s missing are the chalk circles around the cig butts !!
@Declan Daly: and those little yellow signs with numbers on them and someone crouched down pointing at them.
I might be flying in the face of opinion here but it is disgusting and vile. Each time I went to Drogheda for ante natal I had to walk through a plune of smoke in my face. Women who were heavily pregnant included puffing and polluting the air. My first born gave time in Crumlin due to a malformed heart and bringing him in and out resulted in plumes of smoke wafting in his direction also. Smokers, show consideration for the rest of us.
@Susan Doherty: Smokers don’t care about their own health,so why should they consider other people.
The state of these people standing out on cork St smoking hrs before giving birth is sad to say the least. The state “smokers” leave the place in after their cigy’s is disgusting, what’s there lame excuse for this?? Absolute filth
Do like the UK. Encourage vaping instead. No second hand danger. No cigarette ends. Possibly helping a patient quit smoking in the process.
New low , journalists chase smokers in open air spaces . Get a life .
I get the smoking ban but why include vaping in it?!? Surely they should be encouraging people to quit?
Best I ever saw was a lady outside the gate of Ennis hospital in her dressing gown and slippers, alternating between a cigarette and what I assume was some sort of portable oxygen. I don’t smoke anymore but I think the laws in hospitals are draconian. The sheds 30 or 40 meters from the door were a fair compromise I thought. Can anyone here give an instance where they’ve seen the smoking ban policed in a hospital?
Put a big Ash tray back.. Problem solved..
I can never understand this type of thing. Your in hospital to give birth or your ill and trying to get better. Why on earth do people smoke in the entrance to hospital. I had a row with some numpty at the mater last week idiot was smoking and blowing it into people walking in the door.
The nanny state strikes again. Next up a FG tax on cursing.
When are these pathetic journalists going to realise that this idiotic sort of writing/reporting/snitching is going to do nothing but antagonise smokers even more? It is NOT illegal to smoke outside a building and that is the law! If the hospital had any brains they would simply invest in those large ashtray dustbins and POLITE notices asking smokers to discard their fag ends in them instead of the floor. The law was created through lies, manipulated statistics & junk science to supposedly save lives yet the rate of cancer deaths has NOT slowed at all !
Click bait
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