Health Fears Prevent Nurses Lighting Paralysed Man’s Cigarette
BRENDAN Nutting, is paralysed from the neck down. He likes to smoke. For more than two years, staff when the Tasmanian Health and Community Service helped him light a cigarette, which is held in a robotic arm attached to his wheelchair. But then their job was taken over by Tasman Council’s Hobart District Nurses.
Their policy is that staff must not light Mr Nutting’s cigarettes, in line with occupational health and safety regulations.
Says Mr Nutting, 54:
“I’m stuck in here – I’m too young to be in a nursing home. Now I can’t even have a fag. This is supposed to be my home. I’m supposed to have rights. The staff are happy to help me but it’s just the ridiculous system – there is no common sense.”
Mr Nutting has MS. And he offers this opinion of it:
“It is a prick of a disease, I have to rely on everyone else to do everything for me.”
Even think for him…
But on the brighter side, if he can get a light, now at least he has a reason to chain smoke…
Posted: 12th, October 2009 | In: Strange But True Comment (1) | TrackBack | Permalink
