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There are about 90 varieties of e-cigarettes on the market. AP/Press Association Images

E-cigarettes will be banned from hospital campuses in seven days

The HSE has announced the ban on e-cigarettes on its smoke-free campuses.

E-CIGARETTES WILL BE banned at all HSE smoke-free campuses and all HSE buildings from next week.

Dr Stephanie O’Keeffe, the HSE’s National Director of Health and Wellbeing, said the decision had been taken as there is not enough proven information about the products.

Currently, there are about 90 different varieties on the market and patients are “not quite sure” what they are digesting, she told Morning Ireland.

“The best thing you can do for your health is to actually quit smoking,” she continued. “We know that if people use nicotine replacement therapies…they will double their chances of quitting.”

Availing of free sessions with smoking cessation officers around the country also double smokers’ chances of quitting.

O’Keeffe added that the HSE cannot recommend products, such as e-cigarettes, as a mechanism for quitting as they are not yet proven.

“The HSE can only recommend safe and effective products and strategies for quitting smoking, and there currently is no conclusive evidence that e-cigarettes are safe for long-term use, or are effective as a smoking cessation aid,” she added in a statement. 

While we will keep this evidence under ongoing review, the e-cigarettes ban is being introduced as e-cigarettes pose a challenge to smoke-free campus enforcement and come with safety concerns for a healthcare environment.

She also noted that the use of e-cigarettes on hospital campuses – by patients, staff and visitors – was causing problems for the implementation of the smoke-free policies.

“It is confusing,” she explained.

The ban will be put in place from 1 May.

Under the HSE’s Tobacco Free Campus Policy, it is planned that smoking by employees, service users, visitors and any other parties will be prohibited within all HSE campuses by 2015.

Currently, the ban is in effect in 94 per cent of hospitals.

Read: Government ‘should consider banning cigarette sales after 6pm’

More: E-cigarettes could be facing an all-out hospital ban 

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111 Comments
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    Mute Mac Mock
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    Nov 24th 2013, 8:18 AM

    I’d kill for a Nobel peace prize

    81
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    Mute Frank McDonald
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    Nov 24th 2013, 8:27 AM

    Ah now Sinead, you have to learn the difference between Heads of State and Heads of Government!

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    Mute Dennis Collins
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    Nov 24th 2013, 10:37 AM

    Ah now, Frank, you’ll have to learn that while you’re half right, so is Sinéad. There are some Heads of State (e.g. France and Lithuania) who attend these EU events instead of Heads of Government, depending on the particular country’s laws.

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    Mute Frank McDonald
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    Nov 24th 2013, 12:25 PM

    So they should be referred to as “heads of state or government”. The Queen of England has never been at an EU summit. Our Head of State is Michael D Higgins and he hasn’t been to one either. My point is about accuracy

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    Mute Donal O'Brien
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    Nov 24th 2013, 4:54 PM

    I do recall her sitting next to Bertie Ahern at the knees-up following an eu summit.

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    Mute Derek Richardson
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    Nov 24th 2013, 8:31 AM

    While their gesture is to be commended their economic policicies in other regions and countries are killing and starving other citizens of the world hypocrisy at it.s best

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    Mute Ricky Spanish
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    Nov 24th 2013, 10:03 AM

    Name an EU policy that actively kills non-EU citizens?

    Cos that would be quite a news story!

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    Mute Derek Richardson
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    Nov 24th 2013, 1:05 PM

    Austerity is a killer for many now when you find out find out your own identity I will converse with you not some psyeudnym

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    Mute Kugel Berg
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    Nov 24th 2013, 4:04 PM

    I don’t think anybody is starving to death…

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    Mute Derek Richardson
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    Nov 24th 2013, 5:06 PM

    Ivory tower comments lives on

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    Mute Ricky Spanish
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    Nov 24th 2013, 6:38 PM

    Governments spending within their means is murdering people?

    Hyperbole at best… in truth just a moronic rant that belongs better on a barstool.

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    Mute Derek Richardson
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    Nov 24th 2013, 8:00 PM

    There not spending with in their means their spending everybody elses means to keep them in over inflated wage packets and if nobody is starving why are there soup kitchens popping up all over the place st vincent de paul.innundated with request cappuchin centre over ran with people looking hand outs and as for your hyperbole stick it where the sun dont shine as for bar room rhetoric very seldom frequent them so stick your assumption also where the sun dont shine

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    Mute Mitch Cumstein
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    Nov 24th 2013, 9:02 AM

    How touching. Meanwhile they wage war on their own citizens. Hitting the blind and handicapped through austerity in their own backyard. You would think it was their own money being put to a good use. Oh no they’re far to clever for that they’ve always someone else’s money for good causes.

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    Mute Ricky Spanish
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    Nov 24th 2013, 10:05 AM

    The EU wage war on the blind?

    Finally…. a war the French stand a chance of winning!

    21
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