Smoking in smoke-free zones is selfish, especially around sick kids at hospital

SMOKERS that walked past endless signs at a children’s hospital saying “No Smoking” and lit up with sick kids nearby are selfish and don’t think rules apply to them, Duncan Lay writes.

There are smoking bans on hospital grounds in NSW.

YOU see some terrible things when you have to stay with your child at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead. Some break your heart and some do your head in.

The first ones are the poor kids there. The second are the selfish smokers.

My son recently spent a week at the hospital and I found myself recalling those mouth-breathing, smoke-inhaling individuals when I heard this week about that terrible story from Victoria, when a hospital surgeon was coward-punched, allegedly for telling a man to stop smoking.

Of course, having your child in hospital is an incredibly stressful experience and parents do struggle to survive. I can see they may well need the reassurance of a cigarette.

Yes, I felt sad when I saw kids, some of them still connected to their drips, sitting disconsolately on the grass while their parent smoked in the designated area. But I did appreciate they had taken the effort to go into the right area.

Duncan Lay spotted smokers selfishly lighting up in no smoking zones at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead.

I hated the smokers that walked past endless signs saying “No Smoking” and lit up while sick kiddies and their siblings played in the park, or puffed away while the staff tried to eat their lunch in the sun.

They saw the signs — they had to. Even the kids that could barely see spotted them. No, they just decided they were more important.

This is a microcosm of what is wrong with today’s society. People that truly don’t see anything wrong with that. Rules don’t apply to me because I’m more important. If I want to do something, then I’ll bloody well do it and I don’t give a stuff how it affects other people, even if those other people are sick kids.

It was revolting. You see your child or your relative’s child or your friend’s child is going through hell. The least you can do is suck it up, make a tiny sacrifice and hold back on that coffin nail until you are out of the hospital.

But we aren’t prepared to make even the slightest concession to other people.

I want a ciggie so I’ll have one and not care if I blow smoke into the face of some desperately sick child. And if someone tries to stop me, then I’ll coward-punch them.

My son is home now and recovering well. I can’t say enough good things about the amazing staff at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead.

I can’t say enough bad things about the pond scum that litter it with their smoke.