‘Don’t deny Bowmere patients cigarettes’

Sep 26 2008 by David Holmes, Chester Chronicle

‘Don’t deny Bowmere patients cigarettes’

A GRANDMOTHER with mental health problems says people should have the right to smoke while in a psychiatric hospital.

Bev Newey, 47, has had stays at Bowmere Hospital on the Countess of Chester Health Park both before and since the smoking ban came into effect on July 1.

The ban is part of national legislation which has barred smoking in public places – including the rest of the health park – but mental health patients were exempted until July 1 this year.

Bev, from the Garden Lane area of Chester, who smokes 40 a day, said: “My first stay ended on July 1, the day the ban was enforced. The last stay was such a contrast. Gone is the relaxed atmosphere which is needed to promote good mental health.

“What we have now is tension and constant conflict between staff and patients which in turn impedes and most definitely delays recovery.

“I feel this type of specialist unit should be given the same exemption as prisons as most patients are detained against their will and have complex problems that cannot be dealt with while being in a constant ‘war zone’.”

Bev, who is married to Ken and has two grown-up daughters and a two-year-old granddaughter, was a voluntary patient at Bowmere, able to come and go as she pleased between 8am and 8pm meaning she could leave the site for a cigarette.

But those detained under the Mental Health Act have to be escorted to the perimeter of the site with a member of staff, which is not always easy to organise. She said acute patients may live at the hospital for months.

“There was one girl who absconded because she needed a cigarette,” said Bev, whose problems were triggered by post-natal depression 22 years ago. “The police brought her back. They extended her stay, so she got even longer in there without a cigarette.

“I believe if you want to pack in then the time to do that is when you are feeling better and back out.”

Bev has no complaints about her general experience at Bowmere compared with the old West Cheshire Hospital it replaced. She said the rooms were “lovely” with en suite facilities, there was Sky TV and staff were “good”.

Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the hospital, accepts the no smoking policy is “not popular with all service users” but says it prepared patients by offering support in the form of nicotine replacement, activities and healthy snacks.

Avril Devaney, director of nursing, therapies and patient partnership, said: “Compared to the general population, those with mental health problems have traditionally smoked significantly more and are therefore at even greater risk of smoke-related illness.”