Andrew Bushe
Widespread shortcomings in anti-smoking measures in hospitals have been found by a new survey. It also warns that the Government's workplace smoking ban will have major implications for hospitals.
The survey of 73 of the bigger acute and psychiatric hospitals found that in many instances "ad hoc smoking" was the norm.
It says the hazards of smoking in toilets, bathrooms or in other areas needs to be highlighted.
"Tobacco management policies were in place in 53 hospitals," according to the survey for the Irish National Health Promoting Hospitals Network.
"However, not all were in written form and some had not been implemented.
"Even when implemented, a budget was not necessarily in place to support policy implementation."
The survey, carried out by the Department of Public Health Medicine and Epidemiology at UCD , also found that tobacco products were sold in 16 hospitals.
It found problems with designated smoking areas.
"There was a greater number of smoking areas provided for staff than for patients. The size of some of the smoking areas provided, their inadequate ventilation and the lack of physically separated smoking and non-smoking areas were issues highlighted in both staff and patient contexts.
"The issue of staff entering smoking areas to accompany patients was raised as a health and safety concern. There seemed to be a particular problem within the psychiatric hospitals."
The survey found the existence of external smoking areas or no-smoking areas did not imply that smoking was no longer an issue for a hospital.
Where there were external smoking areas for staff, some staff working nights preferred to use patient-smoking areas or were "likely to smoke in the vicinity of where they were working"
The survey recommends "smoking cessation facilitators" be made available for staff, patients and the public, and free nicotine therapy for staff.