Stricter policies on smoking proposed

Press, 10 November 1983, Page 7

Stricter policies on smoking proposed

Stricter hospital policies on cigarette smoking were bandied among North Canterbury Hospital Board members yesterday. The suggestion came in a letter from Dr David Hay, medical director of the National Heart Foundation, who said hospitals should take a stronger community lead by discouraging smoking among visitors and patients. Dr Hay was asked to comment on his own suggestion, this time as chairman of the Christchurch Hospitals’ Medical Staff Association. “I am interested in these comments by the medical director and am sure he is on the right lines,” he said. “I am still appalled by the

amount of smoking that is going on in our hospitals.” The board’s health services committee recommended that the official policy be reviewed to see if it could be strengthened. One suggestion was a more aggressive tone in notices posted in non-smok-ing areas. The medical superintendent of Christchurch Hospital, Dr D. A. Andrews, said wards in the hospital’s new maip block would also each have a “smoking” room separate from the patients’ solariums. A Health Department officer involved in planning the hospital redevelopment was a chain smoker who had insisted on the idea.