Times Colonist

Hospice pitches plan to give dying patients a legal place to smoke.

The dying will have a legal place to smoke at Victoria Hospice.

An outdoor balcony with carpets and heating is being built so that hospice residents can comply with the region's five-month old clean-air bylaw that bans smoking in all indoor places except private residences.

Details of the balcony project, set for completion by the end of summer, will be presented today at a meeting of the Capital Regional District board.

David Cheperdak, executive director of the Victoria Hospice, said the facility, which is devoted to the care of the terminally ill, was lucky. It has come up with a design that protects the rights of patients to smoke and meets the requirements of the by-law.

The balcony will be enclosed enough and heated to the level that can be used by cigarette-puffing patients all year-round.

Cheperdak said the hospice supports the clean-air bylaw. But the facility's top priority is allowing the terminally ill to spend their final days with dignity, and that includes allowing them to enjoy a smoke.

"Our first order of business was the need of our patients to smoke." he said.

Construction of the smoking balcony will cost between $45,000 and $58,000, said Cheperdak.

Up until now patients at the Hospice have been quietly defying the bylaw in a specially constructed enclosed and vented smoking room. At the same time, CRD (Capital Regional District) officials have insisted that an exception can't be made for patients who want to smoke indoors, even if they are dying.

The CRD board will review a report today about what's happening at Hospice and in 16 long-term care facilities, where the move to enforce the no-smoking bylaw has generated considerable debate. It says that 13 long-term care facilities "provide safe, sheltered outdoor space for residents to smoke that meet the requirements of the bylaw."

Four facilities, including Hospice, continue to allow smoking for the time being. Of those, both Hospice and Beacon Hill Villa have plans to move smoking outside, while Greenwoods has both indoor and outdoor smoking facilities.

Also maintaining an indoor smoking room is Oak Bay Lodge. About 25 of the lodge's 273 residents are regular smokers. Their average age is 81.

Oak Bay Lodge administrator Joyce Westcott said that the seven-year old smoking room at her facility is important for safety, has high ventilation standards and is important for the comfort and safety of the residents who use it.

Some residents will smoke outside during good weather, she said.

With files from Richard Watts