It Is A F*&^ing Disgrace

We have people wanting funding for shootup sites for drug addicts. We supply cigarettes and booze to homeless people. We allow beggars to ply their trade with impunity? But we can't find it in our hearts to allow people, who as a rule have contributed much to our society, to die with a little dignity and a minor indulgence.

Dying smoker left out in the cold

No room under new rules for indoor smoking areas in hospitals

Jack Lakey
Toronto Star

As Suzanne Penny prepares for death, one of the few remaining pleasures in life is her cigarettes. They are the cause of the cancer that ravages her, but also a soothing source of comfort. They helped Penny cope with the terror of diagnosis, brain surgery, radiation treatment and knowing she will die soon, and likely alone.

Cigarettes will be her partner on this final journey; there isn't anyone else. They are her friends. To indulge her habit, Penny must leave the Salvation Army Grace Hospital, at Church and Bloor Sts. She bundles up, rides the elevator six floors down and pushes her walker out to the smoking area, near the parking lot and next to an industrial garbage dumpster.

It's the law. There is no protection from wind, rain or cold, only a bench and a receptacle for butts. "It is quite delightful when it's dark and raining," said 58-year-old Penny, a trace of sarcasm tingeing her prim English accent.

Penny and many others in hospitals, chronic care facilities, nursing homes and seniors residences are on the wrong side of the Smoke-Free Ontario Act, which bans smoking in workplaces and public places. It took effect June 1.

The legislation is intended to reduce workers' exposure to second-hand smoke and make it harder for people to light up. But it left no wiggle room for hospitals, some of which had an indoor smoking area for gravely ill people before, but are no longer allowed.

Major Dennis Brown, CEO of Grace Hospital, said he sympathizes with smokers and understands the hardships caused by the new rules, but can't help them.

"When it was legal for us to have a smoking room, we felt that it made sense for people in their final days to have an area where they could continue to smoke and not be faced with symptoms and cravings," said Brown.

Before the province's rules kicked in, the city's smoking bylaw called for a specially ventilated room. Brown says a bylaw inspector told the hospital a year ago its smoking room didn't comply and to stop using it within 30 days, or face large fines.

To a patient with a long-nourished nicotine habit, facing a life-threatening illness without cigarettes may seem like a good idea to non-smokers, but is out of the question to them.

Just stand near the doors of any hospital and observe the procession of patients with jackets over gowns, sometimes in wheelchairs or with intravenous carts in tow, puffing away.

In the daily emails and calls to The Fixer, we occasionally get one that jumps out from the usual fare of tripping hazards and burned-out streetlights.

Penny's began by saying: "I am dying in the palliative care unit at the Grace Hospital. I would like to do so with a reasonable amount of grace and dignity, but that has been taken from me. I am a smoker.

"Forbidding smoking can't – won't – stop me from smoking, but I must go outside to do it. It is a decision that seems sure to give me pneumonia.

"I cannot stop smoking. Someone else's decision gives me no dignity and no choices. I feel sad and angry. Where is the mercy? Where is the humanity? Where are the exceptions?"

Her plea is especially ironic, given that both the University of Toronto and York University recently created rooms for professors who smoke marijuana for medical reasons, but didn't want to sneak around outside to do it.

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