I am sick and tired of having to be bombarded with the scent of smoke in the psychiatric facility I currently work at. Where used to work, granted it was a med-psych unit and not an entire facility, no smoking was allowed... period. Not by the patients and definitely not by the staff. In fact, if staff member did smoke, they had to walk to a designated unsheltered area that was about 200 feet away from the building. Patients got the patch, but nothing more.
Now I work in a behavioral health hospital and which treats children all the way to the geriatric population. Everyone besides those on the child/adolescent units are allowed to smoke. We don't have designated smoking times and it is really up to staff deiscretion how often and when they let patients smoke in the designated patio areas. My issue is that I am subjected to the smell all the time and on one unit there is a backdraft that they say they are working on and I literally feel like I'm smoking.
My charge nurse got upset with me one day because we had a patient with severe muscular dystrophy who would have had a hard time holding her cigarette on her own. The charge asked me to sit out on the patio with her and assist because she feared this patient would burn herself. I respectfully refused. She was surprised, especially because I am usually very helpful. I simply told her that it was not part of my job description to cause harm to my lungs, especially considering I have asthma, just because a patient needed to smoke. I don't understand why this patient could not have had a doctors order for a nicotine patch when smoking was not something she could do without the assistance of staff. She couldn't argue with me and she didn't.
Then the other problem is that at least 60-70% of all the nurses in the facility smoke. This does NOT include other healthcare staff. I think this is ridiculous. Don't get me wrong, there are many bad vices we all have that really shouldn't be since we are in the business of health promotion, but to me smoking really stands out because it affects everyone around you. It is quite unfair that I have to be prepared to use my pump at work because of the smoking. My asthma is usually not that bad and it only really affects me during spring time. I am in the process of filing a complaint because at the end of the day as I see it, If i do get an asthma attack related to the smoking that is an on the job injury...
I Just have a rant...