Smoking in mental health hospitals: Allow or forbid?

Smoking in mental health hospitals: Allow or forbid?

Smoking brings people together. Smoking a cigarette seems to be the most normal thing in the world, as if it does not afect our health. Nowadays, smoking is banned inside every National Health Service (NHS) units in England. But now even some hospitals are bringing in a blanket ban, so there is no smoking in the hospital grounds at all. According to Erica Crompton, freelance journalist and mental health activist, the blanket ban on smoking is cruel and unfair. Although one is familiar with the consequences of smoking, there is still a discussion about regulating or even completely banning smoking in mental health hospitals.The most important question on this subject: Is it unfair to ban smoking in mental health hospitals?To start with the fact that the mental health unit will be the patient's home for a number of weeks or even months. The unit should operate as a temporary home.Generally, most people are free to smoke in their own homes. If we look at it from that perspective, it surely would be unfair if patients would be banned from smoking in mental health hospitals. In this case, the ban on smoking has a contrary efect to the rules at home.Not to mention that the ban on smoking is certainly unfair in situations where the staf also smokes. The patients should not be banned, while the prohibition does not apply to the staf in mental health hospitals. One could imagine that the ban on smoking will only become more difcult and frustrating for patients. A compromise has already been made and introduced in mental health hospitals in Scotland: a blanket ban on smoking in the hospital grounds. This causes not only the patients to get frustrated, but the staf would not be satisfed with it either.However, the staf and especially the doctors, must stimulate the ban on smoking in mental health hospitals. Unlike in the past, we actually know much more about the harmful efects of smoking on both the physical and mental health of a patient. Smoking may pay a role in the development of the mental health illness patients are sufering with. Entering a mental health unit and entirely quit smoking is understandably very difcult, but research on the efects of smoking suggest that quitting smoking is better for mental health. And as patients are in mental health hospitals to get their health back on track, they should not smoke.Furthermore, people with mental health problems have reduced life expectancy of ten to twenty years. And that is why they should be supported in the mental health hospitals to quit smoking. With this intention, the blanket ban is for the purpose of the recovery of the patients. Since smoking generally comes with harmful efects, smoking defnitely should be a blanket ban in more mental health hospitals.Despite the fact that there are already some mental health hospitals with a blanket ban on smoking, there has been paid far too little attention to the circumstances of the patients. When people are getting hospitalised, it is because of a mental health illness. The patients go through the hardest times dealing with the illness and make the unit feel like a temporary home. The mental health hospitals are responsible for the recovery of the patients. An important part to consider is the point that the frst step to recovery is to give the patients a safe and good feeling. Because of the ban, it is said by patients they feel like prisoners. In this respect, the patients are not taken into account when deciding on a ban. Therefore, there is a chance that patients leave prematurely. The ban can also ensure that people with serious problems do not want to seek help because they are faced with a smoking ban, which causes even more stress. To

• / 1