"Medication Time!"
Posted on 05/15/2004 12:08:06 PM PDT by SheLion
Smoking privileges cause AMHI tension
Saturday, May 15, 2004
Associated Press
AUGUSTA — Smoking privileges have become a volatile issue at Augusta Mental Health Institute, where violence flared up recently after patients demanded more opportunities to smoke. Four AMHI employees went to a hospital after being injured May 4 in a scuffle that they said was triggered by a forensic patient's demand to smoke more and be left alone while smoking.
Another incident, on May 7, escalated to near-violence after other forensic patients learned that hospital staff members had extended extra smoking privileges to one patient.
"It's become very problematic," said Jamie Morrill, AMHI's acting superintendent. "But it's something I have to address in the very near future. The smoking issue is getting out of hand."
Morrill said the new $33 million Riverview Psychiatric Center, built next to AMHI, won't resolve the issue because it was designed to be smoke-free and smokers will still have to leave the building to light up.
Cigarette smoking privileges have traditionally been used as rewards and punishment to control patients' behavior, Morrill said.
Investigative reports on the two recent incidents have been kept secret, but reportedly the May 7 confrontation grew out of attempts by hospital staff to decide smoking privileges based on individual patient needs. But stretching the rules led to resentment by other patients.
Smoking is not permitted anywhere in the state psychiatric hospital. It is becoming more difficult to provide smoking breaks outside the hospital because nonsmoking staff members do not want to be exposed to secondhand smoke.
Morrill worries that focusing too much attention on smoking and its role within the hospital can create its own crisis.
"The more you make it a big deal the more it gets to be a big deal . . . I don't know what to do with this thing. This is the next thing I'm going to have to tackle."
Press Herald
"Cigarette smoking privileges have traditionally been used as rewards and punishment to control patients' behavior, Morrill said."
""The more you make it a big deal the more it gets to be a big deal . . . I don't know what to do with this thing. This is the next thing I'm going to have to tackle," said Jamie Morrill, AMHI's acting superintendent."
Way over the top, IMHO! And they wanted this to be kept out of the NEWS? TOO LATE!
Well I guess they can just strip them naked and make them pile into a pyramid. Do they really expect a lot of these patients not to cause a fuss over this? No matter what PC people tend to think taking tobacco away from someone suffering from mental illness is cruel.
FMCDH
Out-patient psyche unit patients smoke like crazy - that and play ping-pong. Its a great place to work if you like tobacco and ping-pong.
Why is it NO smoking??? Don't they have any rights in Maine?
I guess they would rather "medicate" the patients rather then give them a smoke break. It's hard enough to get well when your put under added stress. No matter what a person thinks about smoking, I still believe it's a lot better then self-medicating.
Maine's Board of Health is seeing to it that smoking is not allowed anywhere. Foster parents can no longer smoke anywhere near their "ward."
The Partnership for a Tobacco Free Maine has finally banned smoking in all restaurants, bars, taverns, sports clubs, hospitals and the mental hospitals.
It would be a real pity if they banned their paychecks right out of their pockets should they succeed in banning tobacco in this state.
Smokers, after all, ARE paying their pay checks!
There are too many neurotic hypochondriacs in this world.
Smoking is not permitted anywhere in the state psychiatric hospital. It is becoming more difficult to provide smoking breaks outside the hospital because nonsmoking staff members do not want to be exposed to secondhand smoke.
Well then, they'll probably let me have mine.
;O)
Ain't it the truth!
Da poor baby's! Breaks my heart!
18 July 2002
Hospitals moving to bar psychiatric patients from smoking/Don't go nuts in Maine
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) Thanks to the repeal of a state law, Maine hospitals are moving to prohibit psychiatric patients from smoking.
Maine Medical Center implemented a smoking ban in its psychiatric unit this month, a move that the hospital's interim chief of psychiatry said will help doctors take care of the patient's overall health.
Heh heh!
No way in hell would I try to take YOUR cigarettes away, metesky! YOUSA!!!!! :)
I am perfectly willing to accomodate those folks that actually do have a problem with being around tobacco smoke (I do know some) but with that said...................this bovine excrement is getting totally out of (expletive deleted) hand.
Years ago, the State run nursing home in Delaware built a lovely pavilion (at tax payer expense) to afford their residents the ability to be comfortable in winter and summer when they wanted to have a cigarette. This was after all state run building went non-smoking. Everybody was happy.
When the total smoking ban went into effect in Delaware the State Home requested a waiver for it's smoking pavilion. Such a provision is written into the law, with the discretion up to the DHSS department. This is the same DHSS that spent tax payer funds to build the pavilion on the grounds of the Home run by this same DHSS. The request for a waiver was denied.
The bureaucrats making these decisions don't give a flying flip about the elderly who have been paying their salaries for years - - - does anyone think they would give a hoot about the disabled??????
I realize my example is from a different state - but I am sure it is no different in Maine.
The situation at AMHI isn't new: psych facilities have been put under the gun and forced to institute bans to the general detriment of patients for a while now. Here's what I said about it in Antibrains:
Dangers of Bans
Finally, one of the cruelest instances of such widespread government-mandated bans takes place in facilities that care for some of those who are most powerless in our society: those suffering from mental and emotional illnesses.
Many psychiatric facilities are now forced to ban smoking except in very limited outdoor areas and allow smoking only at times that are under the total control and discretion of nonmedi-cal staff personnel. Given the role of smoking as a self-medication for depression, the limiting of smoking to two or three break periods per day probably produces far more damage to patients than any amount of secondhand smoke in the world, particularly when those break periods are arbitrarily taken away on a staffer’s whim.
Staffers at such facilities are often pleased with such rules because they provide a built-in punishment and reward system that is both efficient and effective: if a patient misbehaves they will simply be denied their smoke break! Once again we are faced with a situation where the damage from such rules really should be properly studied, but also faced with the reality that no one is likely to fund such studies. Sadly, even if funding were available it’s likely that many researchers would be reluctant to perform such studies for fear of being labeled as tools of Big Tobacco.
It is not known how many patients put off checking into care facilities when they otherwise should and would have done so, but it’s likely that more than a few depression-caused suicides would have been prevented if patients knew they’d be allowed to smoke after checking themselves in. Perhaps the ultimate tool for fighting such smoking bans will arrive someday in the form that‘s been so popular with the Crusaders: Lawsuits over fires, injuries and deaths caused by ban-created situations may some-day form a potent incentive for their repeal!
=======
Michael J. McFadden
Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains"
http://www.Antibrains.com
There is not much we can do about it. These are not elected officials.......we can't vote them in or out of office. They set down the rules and we have to eat them. I don't know what the answer is, but they are in the power seat to control and restrict us all.
For some reason, this gives me the shivers!
Very well written, Canti! I wish everyone had that book of yours. It's a compilation of truth.
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