Nurses for Reform Blog

This report from Daily Telegraph, details the decision on health and safety grounds, to make appropriate provision for smokers in the Royal Bournemouth Hospital grounds.

I am not here to debate whether people should or shouldn’t smoke, but people do have the right to make their own life style choices and this is not something that they should be persecuted for by state bodies such as the NHS.

I was listening to a discussion on this subject on the radio yesterday and what struck me about the sanctimonious comments, complaining that smokers were taking NHS resources, was that no-one stopped to consider just how much smokers contribute to the government coffers given the amount of tax there is on a packet of cigarettes now.!

While I make no comment on the health issues surrounding smoking, I am very concerned about this article and the rise in public health vigilanteism.

That children should be encouraged, either actively or passively, by teachers and the police to assault smokers in public because they do not agree with their personal choices is something that we should be very worried about.

This type of action has led to dreadful horrors in the past and society should be very worried about the public persecution of individuals merely exercising their freedom to make life style choices.