At Centennial Peaks it is hard for non-smokers to get fresh air!
I do not
think it is necessary to demonstrate the importance of fresh air and natural sunlight
for anyone’s health and particularly for patients with psychiatric challenges.
European sanitariums and even the famous MacLean hospital in Massachusetts use
nature as healing. However, just as with prison inmates, patients do not have
full privileges initially.[1]
Until the
patient has seen a doctor, they are not allowed outside to the courtyard with
the basketball court. And even so this access is highly limited (once a day it
seemed) in comparison with the the number of times in which smokers are permitted
outside during the numerous smoke breaks (at least four times, perhaps even
more).[2] As a non-smoker with
sensitive lungs, if I had not seen a doctor or had missed gym time, I had no
other recourse to obtain fresh air except when it is clouded with smoke. As I
explained this to a staff member with long smooth dark hair she sharply told
me, “You do have a choice.” A choice between no fresh air and polluted air? I
also begged staff to permit me a scant two minutes of fresh air before the
smokers came in and this was summarily denied.
[1] On the sociology
of the psychiatric ward, Erving Goffman,. Asylums: Essays on the
social situation of mental patients and other inmates. Aldine Transaction, 1968.)
[2] The frequency of
these smoke breaks, far greater than I have witnessed in other impatient units,
combined with the unit actually supplying cigarettes is rather curious. It
remains shocking that the unit is happy to supply a deadly drug yet as will be
seen shortly, will deny me my lithium.
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