ALLAN C Steele(Letters, August 7) is right to deplore the non-compliance and and lack of enforcement of the no smoking code of practice at the approach to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital entrance and elsewhere, although I have wry memories of a day room in the same location some 20 years ago of one patient with no legs in a wheelchair, another seated with his remaining one leg, both being joined by an ambulant inmate adorned with a naso-gastric tube and pushing a loaded drip stand.

Three patients with three legs between them, and all smoking.

Their defiance of medical advice was regrettable, but I did admire their never-say-die attitude, and the banter was great.

R Russell Smith,

96 Milton Road, Kilbirnie.