The war against smoking in public places isn't being waged ferociously enough, I think. OK, at the Countess of Chester Hospital they've adopted a zero tolerance policy, so that patients can no longer stand outside the doors, in the cold, for a quick fag, and smoking shelters for staff to use during their breaks have been turned into libraries holding scenic pictures of pine forests, mountain streams, and athletes in the very pink of health standing around mocking a weedy little smoker of obviously low moral character. They are also helping those of their staff - almost a third, it seems - who continue to smoke despite everything, by offering them 'subsidised Nicotine Replacement Therapy' and, where that fails, intensive re-education sessions with Optional Partial Lobotomy:
For the hospital it doesn't matter how you give up, just that you choose a method that works for you.Moreover, the Countess of Chester's 'crusade' [sic] could be 'entering a new phase':
"We are considering the position of our community midwives who go to houses where people smoke and what sort of attitude to take to the fact that they are exposed to second-hand smoke as part of their job," [Mike Phelan, Director of Operations] said.But, let's face it, this is tame stuff. I think the hospital should consider rounding up all smokers who enter its premises, holding them for several days and hosing them down with liquid horse shit until they confess to the unutterable baseness of their own miserable beings and renounce their evil ways forever.
