smoking in the work place

[fat cat]

I would like to know if any one could advise me on how to go about making a change in a LTC facility where staff is required to take reisdents outside to smoke for monitoring them for safety which is required. I do not think that non smokers should be forced to be subjected to second hand smoke nor utilize nursing time frames to satisty a smokers habit. While there is a plethora of information available on second hand smoke it does not appear that non-smokers have complete protection/ legal rights in the workplace. I would like to see a law that would change this. Additionally in the entrance/exit area to clock in + out , is the designated smoke area for employees which offers a second exposure. There is not always a smoker on duty on the particular floor who can accommodate the patient so the nonsmokers who do not want to do this have no choice. I want to see an end to this. At other times the smoker employee can "enjoy " the continual "privilege" to take the patient to smoke causing the non smoker employee to be left to answer all of the smoker employee's call lights. Personally I do not beleive that the patients should be allowed to smoke at all. But it is my understanding that because the LTC facility is considered their "home" that they have a right to smoke. I would like to see a law enacted to protect the worker from second hand smoke. I would appreciate any suggestions.

[Agnus]

Well I might come down with a coughing fit myself. But actually I doubt if I was informed at the time of hire that this was part of my duties i would not accept the job.

If they did not inform you you could raise a little H@ll.

I would simply not work there. there are too many nursing jobs in this world.

[Agnus]

If you are a nurse there is no reason why you can not introduce a stop smoking program. You can make it available to both staff, and residents, heck offer it to family members too.

You do not have to be management to do this, just be a leader.

I am a non smoker and I have put up with this, and I have done home care for chain smokers. It is an unfortunate fact of life. It is very unpleasant for me but for the most part I cope. There are times and situation that I find exposure down right painful (generally when allergies are already acting up) in those situations I will sometimes decline the patient or resident or do what I have to to limit my exposure.

[smk1, LPN]

I'm sorry, but if you are not physically able to go out to smoke by your self then I shouldn't have to take you! Actually, at the hospital I work in I refuse to. I have the patient sign an AMA paper and tell them that if they are physically able to take themselves out and are willing to take the risk then go for it but I, nor the hospital, will be held accountable. We go smoke free on the 30th! lol

This is how I feel, I don't want to be sick and smell like smoke and then go into my other patient's rooms and cause problems for them. Smoking should be on their own or maybe with the assistance of someone helping them out to the designated area and then coming back for them at a specified time at MOST.

P.S. who has the time to take all of these smokers out and sit with them anyway? and don't many smokers smoke every hour if not more often? At some point you would have to say they are on their own...

[mytoon38]

So you don't smoke? Neither do I-you probably don't crap and wet your pants either but you have to clean up the residents that do so...What's the difference?

In reference to the above comment posted by one of the members: Let's see, the BIG difference is if I use universal precautions when I clean up a pt., it's very unlikely that I am going to die or contract a disease from that. However, if I inhale second-hand smoke on a regular basis, lung cancer and or dying is a VERY REAL POSSIBILITY, so that is the very BIG difference!!!!!!!:angryfire

[lastkiss32]

did our forefathers not fight and die for our rights, each individual right smokers or none, the air outside, if you do the research is worse than the second hand smoke- use an air conditioner- check out the research on the filth and toxins it puts out, use air freshners, check them out, you can nit pick it to death but all have rights and if your in nursing your patients rights are what you are looking out for not thyself's, you are in thier home, you can do as you please in yours, but this is thier home and they have rights, if you don't want to go out with them then let someone else and don't moan about answering the lights because you didn't want to take care of your resident, and yes if they smoke it is taking care of them to take them out, it decreases thier frustrations and what right does an individual have to take that away from another. Save the judgment for when it is your turn cause no one is perfect, find another job or do your job happily like you are suppose to do, the nursing oath says the patient comes first and if they don't then you are in the wrong field.

JMO

[lastkiss32]

If you are concerned for your own health(we all are but not all are fanatics in worrying every moment) about getting diseases ect... go to another field because this one is always dangerous no matter what at any given time and moment. Sometimes all the precautions and protective equipment in the world won't help

[angel's RN]

O.K., I hope that I don't break my fingers while typing this.

I understand that if you are a non-smoker you don't want to take the resident outside to smoke. But someone who does smoke should be able to take the residents outside. Maybe set up certain "smoke break" times during the day.

Smokers have rights, too. Sometimes people forget that there are people in this field that smoke, and by having the untire hospital campus "smoke free" is impinging on our rights, our feelings. What does it hurt--WHO does it hurt if a smoker goes out to his/her own car to smoke. Being outside, away from anyone that doesn't smoke, shouldn't hurt anyone (but the smoker, and we know the risks, complications, ect.). Why can't you give the smoker a corner of the parking lot, way far away from the facility, the other staff members? Instead, the smoker has to get in the car and drive around the block, or walk out to the street at 0200 am. The non-smoker gets breaks, can go to the lounge to sit, or go to the dining room for 30 min. Why can't a smoker take their breaks by going outside?

Yes, as you can probably tell by this long winded post that I am a smoker, and I do go out to the road at 0200 am to take my break. But I think that this is MY right to do so.

If I have stepped on anyone's toes, I am sorry. But, , I have to put mine in.

's RN

[WakeUpRN]

I am a nursing student so I haven't encountered this type of scenario yet. Do hospitals actually require nurses to escort patients to smoke and then stand there with them? I would adamantly refuse.

To those posters who said that the nurse could stand "upstream" from the smoke.... Wind doesn't blow in only one direction. I suppose smokers don't realize how completely and utterly FRUSTRATING it is to have to dance around a smoker to get away from thier stinking noxious cloud, and still end up breathing in smoke thats been in someone else's mouth. :angryfire G-R-O-S-S.

Besides the fact that second-hand smoke is dangerous for those of us who enjoy clean air, it is also disgusting to think that people are so selfish and disrespectful of those around them that they would put thier own habit above the health of others.

That's the price of addiction I guess. Unfortunately, smokers aren't the only ones paying for it. :barf01:

In the debate over smokers and non-smokers rights:

My right to breathe air will always overrule a smokers right to breathe smoke.

I am very angered by this type of thing. I guess spending a big chunk of your childhood sitting in public bathrooms with an inhaler will do that to you.

[angel's RN]

I am a nursing student so I haven't encountered this type of scenario yet. Do hospitals actually require nurses to escort patients to smoke and then stand there with them? I would adamantly refuse.

To those posters who said that the nurse could stand "upstream" from the smoke.... Wind doesn't blow in only one direction. I suppose smokers don't realize how completely and utterly FRUSTRATING it is to have to dance around a smoker to get away from thier stinking noxious cloud, and still end up breathing in smoke thats been in someone else's mouth. :angryfire G-R-O-S-S.

Besides the fact that second-hand smoke is dangerous for those of us who enjoy clean air, it is also disgusting to think that people are so selfish and disrespectful of those around them that they would put thier own habit above the health of others.

That's the price of addiction I guess. Unfortunately, smokers aren't the only ones paying for it. :barf01:

In the debate over smokers and non-smokers rights:

My right to breathe air will always overrule a smokers right to breathe smoke.

I am very angered by this type of thing. I guess spending a big chunk of your childhood sitting in public bathrooms with an inhaler will do that to you.

I am very sorry that you had to spend "a big chunk of your childhood sitting in public bathrooms with an inhaler", I truly am. But I think that you may have misunderstood my statement. I am not asking you to go to the corner of the parking lot, or out to the street with me, or even to get into my car. All I am asking of you is that you give me MY right to MY bad habit. Yes, I know that it is a bad habit, and that it is bad for me, ect.,ect., but it is MY bad habit, not yours. I have tried to quit, but I guess that I am not ready.

But I am offended by the statement that you think that I am selfish and disrespectful when you don't even know me.

If I am with a group of people, and there is a non-smoker, you will NEVER see me light-up around you. I will walk FAR, FAR away from you to smoke.

It is MY air, too. Non-smokers are not the only people on the earth. I feel that you think that I, as a smoker, have NO rights as a human being, and that is unfair. Cigarettes are not illegal, and THANK GOD, I live in the United States of America, because---

I best get off this post, or I'll get in trouble.

's RN

[angel's RN]

Dear ktwlpn,

I work with a nurse who is a Jehovah Witness, and that nurse will not initiate or finish any blood product. I respect that, and I will hang the blood. Then again, this nurse respect my break time to smoke. So it's tit-for-tat. Wouldn't it be nice is all nurses work together like that?

's RN

[jojotoo, RN]

I know that being affected by second hand smoke is a very popular theory right now, but is it truly accepted in the scientific world?

[caroladybelle, BSN, RN]

I know that being affected by second hand smoke is a very popular theory right now, but is it truly accepted in the scientific world?

There are continued debates on that.

For me, my mother never smoked a day in her life. But she has chronic bronchitis, and her lungs on an CXR looks like a smokers.

Her only risk factor...an exhusband that smoked 3-4 packs per day...they were married for 25 years.

In my college dorm, I got fined every time Dad visited. He refused to smoke outside, saying that they had no right to ban him from smoking in his daughter's room. He knew that I would be fined, but didn't care. It was "my fault" for living with those people, the nonsmokers.

Smoking, like any form of substance abuse, has an unintended fallout, to those around the substance abuser.