MONCTON -- Hospitals have been cracking down on smoking for years, requiring even patients to smoke in restricted areas. Now, New Brunswick health authorities are asking Moncton to consider a smoking ban on city-owned land outside the Moncton and Dr. Georges-L.-Dumont hospitals.

“Horizon has put forward a joint request to meet with Moncton City Council to examine some potential solutions, to look at our public sidewalks, and how we can prevent people in public from smoking near our entryways,” says Nancy Parker, the executive director of Moncton Horizon Health.

Hospital grounds at the Moncton and Dr. Georges-L.-Dumont hospitals are already smoke-free zones, but the city sidewalks across the street -- where many patients go to smoke -- are not.

Still, health authorities say they have received numerous complaints about smokers too close to the hospital.

“We have a smoke-free policy that is in place,” says Parker. “It has been challenging to make sure there is compliance with this.”

The idea of implementing a smoking ban on city-owned land isn’t sitting well with some patients who are regular smokers.

“I’m across the street. How is that not enough room for people to not smell the cigarettes, if that’s the problem?” asks Sean Bastarache, a patient at the Moncton Hospital.

One patient who uses a wheelchair says it’s already hard enough to wheel off hospital grounds, so having to travel further, especially in cold weather, will be an issue.

“Sidewalks are a place for us to be able to stop our wheelchair and smoke, have a cigarette,” says the patient, who asked not to be identified.

While a decision has yet to be made on whether the potential ban will become a reality, it is raising a lot of questions among patients like J.D. Leger, who has been smoking on the same corner outside the Moncton Hospital for years.

Leger says having a cigarette is his escape from a stressful life behind hospital doors.

“I get relief when I have a cigarette,” he says. “Where do we go?”

But health authorities say the pros of having a city-land smoking ban outweigh the cons, and such a ban would be better for everyone’s health.

“Ideally we want to make sure we’re protecting the health and safety of our patients and our public coming through,” says Parker.

The Horizon and Vitalité Health networks say the plan is in its early stages and they’re not waiting to meet with the city.

City officials say they will be having an internal discussion about the issue, to see if anything can be done from a municipal perspective, but there is no timeline yet.