Allowing mental health patients to smoke on hospital grounds suggests to them they are second-class citizens whose health does not matter, a staff proposal to a Southern District Health Board committee says.
The hospital advisory committee, which meets in Oamaru today, will consider whether an exemption for locked-in patients should be lifted. At present, they are allowed to smoke in designated outdoor areas.
The policy as it stood stigmatised locked-in patients by allowing them to smoke when others were forbidden, the proposal said.
''We currently have a situation in the DHB wherein all hospitals (including the trust hospitals) are smokefree environments whilst Wakari Hospital is not.
''This is not tenable and sends a confused and wrong message to the people whom we employ and serve.''
In a survey of local psychiatric patients, there was overwhelming support for a ban, the proposal said.
The High Court at Auckland in July dismissed concerns such bans contravened human rights, the proposal said.
Stopping smoking conferred health benefits on patients and the effects of nicotine withdrawal could be managed.
The committee will make a recommendation to the full board, which meets tomorrow in Oamaru.
The exemption was made in 2010 due to concerns a full ban discriminated against those confined to hospital grounds.
