Hospital smoking ban irks parking-lot puffers

New Brunswick smokers are fuming after Fredericton's regional health authority banned smoking anywhere on its property — including in vehicles using hospital parking lots.

The policy has outraged patients and visitors, who say River Valley Health has no right to tell them what they can do in their own cars.

"If I pay $20,000 or $30,000 for a brand-new vehicle, I'd like to see someone come to my vehicle and tell me that I'm not allowed to smoke [in it]," said Minto resident Troy Quigley.

"When they start making my car payments, well then they can tell me I can't smoke."

The policy applies at River Valley Health facilities between Fredericton and Minto, and up the St. John River Valley into Plaster Rock.

At the Dr. Everett Chalmers Hospital in Fredericton, smokers have been in the habit of stepping outside the front door for a cigarette. It has not been uncommon to see patients, dressed in hospital gowns and towing intravenous trolleys, standing outside to smoke.

Spokeswoman Shelly Fletcher said hospital staff will simply ask smokers "in a sensitive manner" to butt out.

Fletcher said the policy is part of an initiative to promote healthy living, but some people using the Chalmers parking lot saw it differently.

David Duplisea drove to the hospital from Shelburne, N.S., to get checked out because he wasn't feeling well. The prospect of a smoking ban didn't make him feel any better.

"That's almost ugly, you know, to police people in their own vehicle where you pay for parking," Duplisea said.

A visitor from Ontario, where a near-total ban on public smoking came into effect Wednesday, said she's fed up with bureaucrats trying to run her life.

"You know, people should just back off a little bit," said Sudbury resident Katherine Iteroo, who came to Fredericton to visit her mother at the hospital.

"Give us a little bit of compassion, you know, a little bit."