E-INTERVIEW with Michael Cunningham - Cystic Fibrosis ...

WHAT AILS YE?
Every day I live I become more militant about smokers.
A bold statement? Not politically correct maybe
in this age of extreme "P-C-ness"? Is there such a
word? I don't care, it's my rant and I'll coin if I want
to… as I said I'm feeling belligerent.
It's a habit, an addiction, very difficult to give up; it's
a personal choice, peer pressure… I've heard them
all and I simply don't care - there's nothing a smoker
can say that doesn’t sound like an excuse to me.
Why, you ask do I feel this way? Surely with the success
of the smoking ban, the canonisation of
Michael Martin and the delight with which some
smokers are declaiming how much less they are
smoking I have no reason to be bitter.
The addition of oxygen to my life is the answer. That
and a recent spell in hospital during the hottest
weather on record for over 10yrs has compounded
my dislike of people who block entrances, exits,
doorways and stairwells with their puffing.
From the regularity with which patients gather at the
same spot I'm almost positive that they are spreading
word about it by describing it as "meeting at the
no-smoking sign". Such sweet irony. Human
nature… you argue. Lack of enforcement… I counter.
Why does that fail to surprise in an Ireland where
the attitude is "if you don’t catch me, charge me,
hold me down & cattle prod me... then it’s not illegal"?
On my breaks from the ward to find a breath of fresh
air instead I found that the best spots on walls,
benches and grassy patches were taken over en
bloc by smokers. While me, with my tank on my
back and fighting a chest infection, had to go that
extra mile… literally, to find a spot where I too could
7
WHAT AIL’S YE
Is there something that’s been bugging you for a while? Got something to get off your chest?
Future Force invites you to have a good gripe and asks “What Ails Ye”? Put on your boots
because we’re going on a long walk to find a smoke-free utopia!
Smoking is “banned” in the hospital environment...
By Jean Byrne
share in the wonderful weather but not be choking
and spluttering for the privilege.
Would a designated non-smoking bench be outside
the realm of possibility?
On deeper reflection I sometimes think that maybe
the problem lies within our understanding of the
English language… or lack thereof. Flammable
means the same thing as inflammable (confusing, I
know) but people take note … "prohibited" IS NOT
synonymous with "allowed". Maybe the droning
mechanical voice outside the main entrance of the
hospital actually attracts rather than repels, hmm? A
theory I would like to see researched by the
Department of Preventative Medicine & Health
Promotion within that fine establishment. Funding
anyone?
Maybe there is something in all that stair climbing
the physio puts you through in the name of exercise.
I have decided to use mine for more subversive purposes…
no, not to build up enough leg muscle to
carry me swiftly past the swirls of smoke… but to
increase my load bearing capabilities to carry a different
sort of tank in my backpack... a fire extinguisher!
Twenty years ago I sipped my juice in the smoky
canteen in Crumlin Hospital; travelled in a smokefilled
bus for many more years and looking back now
society thinks "how unacceptable, how disgusting!"
How long must I now wait for this latest scourge of
free breathing people to be purged?
My personal favourite solution; ban it. Ban smoking
in all public places… and enforce it.