A lung cancer survivor says she’s tired of walking through a cloud of smoke in order to get into the hospital.
Gail Pfaff started smoking cigarettes when she was 14 years old. She kept smoking for years until doctors found cancer in her lungs when she was 52 years old. She often told friends out at their cottage that if the cigarettes didn’t get her the campfire would.
But she was able to get treatment and has been cancer free for eight years.
When she visited the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre, she often had to walk passed a number of people smoking. She said she wanted the smoking to stop.
“It’s becoming a real problem,” Pfaff said. “I come to the hospital and there’s always five or six people smoking outside. You walk into the smoke and there’s 30 or 40 buds on the ground. It’s really disgusting.”
Pfaff attended the second public session held at the regional hospital on Saturday. Officials with the hospital wanted public input on how to keep the grounds smoke free. Ideas ranged from fines to community engagement. About 14 participated at the meeting.
“I’m hoping that we can educate people in the community to think of what’s happening,” she said.
“The smoking is killing us. It’s killing our community. We need to find a way to help them. We need to clean up this hospital area. It’s getting worse.”
She added the hospital should do whatever it takes to ensure that problem gets better.
Scott Sellick, director of supportive and palliative care at Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre, said they are trying to come up with a plan to tackle the issue of smoking on hospital grounds.
“We all want to be healthier in a multitude of ways and when it comes to smoking, most of the people that come to our facility do not smoke,” Sellick said. “But for smokers, who do come here, many do want to quit and it’s difficult.”
Sellick said some of the ideas to help with the problem revolved around education. Although, enforcement through fines was an option the hospital is also considering, he said.
“We want to be more proactive as opposed to you come here and we tell people in a Draconian sort of way ‘oh now that you are here you can’t smoke’,” he said.
“What we discovered was that if you take something to people they will give you feedback. I use to get myself off the hook by saying ‘well, the programs are here’. What I’ve learned is that people want them to bring (the programs) to them.”
Follow Jeff Labine on Twitter @Labine_reporter.
