FDA Hospitals now offering e-cigarettes to smokers and vapers in hospital

[Nate760]

I realize that healthcare facilities want people to not smoke, and to quit…but being forced to go cold turkey isn't very conducive to healing. The physical symptoms of withdrawal are very real, and can exacerbate existing medical problems especially in a crappy stressful environment like a hospital. It seems like a more humane option to offer patients and guests an option that nobody will whine about, that still allows them to get their nicotine.

My dad was in the VA hospital a few weeks ago getting a hip replaced, and he got stuck sharing a room with three other people in post-op. He said the guy two beds over from him would call the nurse in every hour on the hour, day and night, and demand to be taken outside so he could have a cigarette. So 20 times a day, two or three nurses would have to drag this guy out of his bed, put him in a wheelchair, and wheel him all the way to the opposite side of the building where there's an outdoor patio.

My dad's telling me about all this, and at one point he remarks "Just to avoid that amount of wasted time for the nurses, and annoyance to the other patients, why couldn't they give the guy a couple e-cigs and be done with it? I would've rather smelled a little vapor than having to listen to him moan about needing a smoke all the damn time."

 

[MD_Boater]

they probably have you buy theirs in case personal vaporizers might contain allergens others might find irritating

Or to ensure that there are no "other" substances in them.

 

[Cowboy192]

And this is how evolution begins

 

[DC2]

It seems like a more humane option to offer patients and guests an option that nobody will whine about, that still allows them to get their nicotine.

I think you're being too kind.

In my opinion, it is utterly INHUMANE not to offer such an option.
And these are "people" that are supposed to care about alleviating human suffering.

But we all know that these "people" think smokers are not human, they are just scum which should not be tolerated.

And on that note, here is another good place to post this...
Rampant Antismoking Signifies Grave Danger

 

[Kent C]

I think you're being too kind.

In my opinion, it is utterly INHUMANE not to offer such an option.
And these are "people" that are supposed to care about alleviating human suffering.

But we all know that these "people" think smokers are not human, they are just scum which should not be tolerated.

And on that note, here is another good place to post this...
Rampant Antismoking Signifies Grave Danger

I could make a good case that a family member died because of being forced outside in the cold to smoke - the ensuing pneumonia, complicated other aspects of her health.

 

[BlueCanary]

I think you're being too kind.

In my opinion, it is utterly INHUMANE not to offer such an option.
And these are "people" that are supposed to care about alleviating human suffering.

But we all know that these "people" think smokers are not human, they are just scum which should not be tolerated.

And on that note, here is another good place to post this...
Rampant Antismoking Signifies Grave Danger

Yeah, well, I WAS trying to be nice. I do agree with you, and if I gave my 100% honest opinion about hospitals and their "smoke free campus" rules, it would be hard for me to do it without using forbidden words. When my grandpa was in the hospital dying, which took a week, my dad and all my uncles did the same sort of miserable almost a mile hike to smoke because it's apparently hard for a hospital to just create a designated smoking area with signs warning all the people who are soooo sensitive to the evil smoke to not walk over there. It was February, and snowing. Don't get me started on the crappy doctor I had years ago (only one in my town who was open to new patients AND took my crappy insurance) who basically refused to ever give me any actual treatment for anything because I was a smoker. Ear infection? Well, if you'd quit smoking it would get better. Bronchitis? Smoking. Female problems? You guessed it…smoking. Every time I went to see him (and it's always FOR something, I don't go to the doctor unless I'm in serious hurt) he was always pushing that anti-smoking drug on me. It didn't make me stop smoking…it made me go without medical treatment until I got better insurance and a better doctor.