A trauma nurse is one of four people to have been given a £50 fine in a crackdown on smoking outside Ninewells Hospital and is to be disciplined by NHS Tayside for her actions.
The woman — who asked not to be named — was caught having a cigarette during her lunch break, and is angry at being penalised.
“They are taking my rights away from me,” she said. “Everyone has a bad habit and unfortunately this is mine.
“If I was caught smoking inside the building I could understand, but I was having a cigarette outside the hospital on my unpaid half-hour lunch break.
“We’re on call for trauma and we can’t leave the grounds because we’ve still to be available to be called back.”
The nurse said her colleagues — including non-smokers — thought the fine was extremely harsh.
“People are not even being given a warning first — they are just being hit with fines,” she said.
Dundee City Council enforcement officers moved on to the site a week past Monday.
A spokeswoman for NHS Tayside said two people were given a £50 fixed penalty for smoking and two for dropping litter.
The council is involved in a year-long pilot scheme which will see NHS Tayside pay for two enforcement officers to visit the site for 16 hours a week.
Statutory powers vested in council enforcement officers allow them to mete out spot fines for littering and for any contraventions of national legislation that bans smoking in enclosed public places.
NHS Tayside’s policy goes beyond national legislation and bans smoking everywhere on the site, including within vehicles in the car parks. But that policy cannot be enforced on members of the public, who can only be asked to stop smoking outside.