{"id":528616,"date":"2026-07-16T07:36:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T07:36:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/528616\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T07:36:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T07:36:18","slug":"whangarei-hospital-patient-fumes-over-smokers-outside-entrance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/528616\/","title":{"rendered":"Whang\u0101rei Hospital patient fumes over smokers outside entrance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Te Whatu Ora – Health New Zealand Northland group director of operations Alex Pimm told the Northern Advocate<\/a> that Whang\u0101rei Hospital and all HNZ sites in Northland were smokefree<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cPeople should fully leave the site, including our grounds, before smoking or vaping.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur security team monitor this, make enforcement decisions, and will ask people to relocate,\u201d Pimm said. <\/p>\n

But that was not her experience and she had complained in writing to the hospital.<\/p>\n

Te Whatu Ora replied, in a letter, that security would take a more proactive approach but did not address her suggestion to station a guard at the entrance. <\/p>\n

\"TeTe Whatu Ora – Health New Zealand’s formal response to a woman who complained about smokers at the entrance to Whang\u0101rei Hospital.<\/p>\n

The letter said security would remind people to \u201cmove away from the doorway and into appropriate areas\u201d.<\/p>\n

The woman recalled smokers in other parts of the hospital grounds. <\/p>\n

\u201cPreviously they [smokers] sat on the steps by the cafe where people were eating and drinking, and now they are on the chair at the entrance \u2013 yuck!\u201d the patient said. <\/p>\n

\u201cIsn\u2019t it illegal?\u201d <\/p>\n

The Ministry of Health<\/a> is the lead enforcement agency for the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Act 1990<\/a>, which requires all internal areas of workplaces and certain public enclosed spaces to be smoke and vape-free. Smoking is only permitted in open areas, though employers may choose to ban it entirely. <\/p>\n

Sarah Curtis is a news reporter for the Northern Advocate, focusing on a wide range of issues. She has nearly 20 years\u2019 experience in journalism, much of which she spent court reporting. She is passionate about covering stories that make a difference. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Te Whatu Ora – Health New Zealand Northland group director of operations Alex Pimm told the Northern Advocate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":528617,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1443,74,6856,6261,193025,8455,2241,261063,3120,3025,111,43,139,69,3268,14727,1523,1597,384,8244,3948,51025,20789,9863,1869],"class_list":["post-528616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-about","tag-after","tag-complained","tag-entrance","tag-fumes","tag-getting","tag-hospital","tag-lungful","tag-main","tag-most","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-outpatient","tag-outside","tag-over","tag-patient","tag-people","tag-recent","tag-smoke","tag-smokers","tag-smoking","tag-visit","tag-whangrei"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=528616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/528617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=528616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=528616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=528616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}