Health Risks and Health Care

Yesterday, Gossips reported on the proposed expansion of the Quick Mart at 67 Green Street, noting that the expansion would bring the back wall of the building very close to the lot line of 17 McKinstry Place. In a comment on that post, the owner of the house at 17 McKinstry Place mentioned a sign advertising cigarettes that had been affixed to a tree next to his driveway by the proprietor of the Quick Mart. When he asked the proprietor to move the sign, he was told that the placement of the sign was meant to attract hospital workers to buy cigarettes in his store.

In a reply to that comment, I suggested that the hospital might object to cigarette advertising directed toward its employees. Shouldn't a health care institution be doing everything it can to help its workers stop smoking?

That comment inspired a reader to send me the picture at the right. It shows a cigarette lighter that was presented by the hospital to a female relative of his when she graduated from the hospital's school of nursing in 1971. Irony of ironies. If memory serves, cigarette packs were already carrying health risk warnings in 1971.
COPYRIGHT 2015 CAROLE OSTERINK