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Local Hospitals to Ban All Smoking, Even Outdoors

Posted on: Friday, 15 July 2005, 18:00 CDT

Springfield's hospitals will become in November the largest employers locally to ban smoking everywhere on their property.

Officials from Memorial Medical Center and St. John's Hospital said Tuesday that concern about the dangers of secondhand smoke, as well as the institution's missions, prompted them to plan policies that will eliminate all designated outdoor smoking areas.

The bans, affecting hospital employees, patients and visitors, will begin Nov. 17, the same day as the American Cancer Society's Great American Smokeout.

"It sends a very, very strong message what our business is," said James Bente, a vice president at Memorial's parent company, Springfield-based Memorial Health System. "Our mission is to maintain, restore and improve the health of people in the communities we serve. The business of health care is undermined by tobacco use. "

Al Myers, director of safety and security at St. John's, said: "We've been headed this way for a couple of years now. We're doing it to promote a better work environment for our employees. We think it's important as a health-care institution that we model good behavior."

Memorial and St. John's each employ about 3,400 people, with an estimated 20 percent to 25 percent of them smokers.

The hospitals, which are not unionized, plan to offer traditional smoking-cessation programs to employees. In addition, St. John's will offer acupuncture, and Memorial will help pay for hypnosis.

Hospital officials said they will be respectful in asking visitors not to smoke but are aware the topic may be sensitive for friends and relatives already preoccupied with loved ones facing life-threatening illnesses.

"All you can do is ask for compliance," Myers said.

Added Bente: "We're not going to kick people off of the property."

Mark Myers, a 38-year-old Chatham resident, smoked a cigarette with his wife outside the St. John's emergency department earlier this week while his 6-year-old son underwent an emergency appendectomy. Myers, a maintenance worker, said he was puzzled by the impending policy.

"I don't see any purpose in why they want to do that," said Myers, who isn't related to Al Myers. "It'll just lead to more aggravation."

Kelly Thompson, a spokeswoman for the Sangamon County branch of the American Heart Association, said the group is thrilled with the hospitals' decisions.

"It's just highlighting on a policy level what we want to see happen," she said.

The association also would like to see the Springfield City Council ban indoor smoking in public places, including restaurants and bars, if Gov. Rod Blagojevich signs a bill that would give municipalities the right to do so.

But some hospital employees weren't so enthusiastic about the hospitals' plans, which could result in discipline for workers who violate the policies during their shifts.

"It's going to be real bad on the attitudes of workers," said Diana Langley, 50, a Memorial housekeeper on a smoking break at a shelter along Dodge Street. "A lot of people's personalities are going to be changed."

Mary Ferguson, 47, a Memorial insurance claims specialist, said, "As long as we're in a designated area, I can't see what the problem is. I like to smoke. I know it's not good for me. It's a personal choice."

Robin Johnson, 41, a histology technician at St. John's, said, "It might not be a very happy place for some people. A lot of people are upset. It won't get me to quit."

And a St. John's pharmacist smoking in a designated area outside the hospital's emergency department said the policy is "crazy. I'm kind of looking for another job because of this. I think I should quit smoking, but I don't like people telling us we have to."

However, Sherri Sheckler, 42, a smoker who is a secretary in the St. John's emergency department, said the policy is a good idea. She said she will try again to quit smoking because of it.

"If I can't go an eight-hour day without smoking, there is a problem," she said.

Also launching smoke-free campuses Nov. 17 will be Passavant Area Hospital in Jacksonville and at two Memorial affiliate hospitals: St. Vincent Memorial in Taylorville and Abraham Lincoln Memorial in Lincoln.

Memorial's parent company, which employs a total of about 5,000 people, plans to institute the smoke-free policy systemwide on the same date. That means the policy also will apply to the Memorial physician network, the Springfield Mental Health Center and Visiting Nurse Association of Central Illinois.

And Springfield Clinic, which employs 1,400 people, will take steps beginning Nov. 17 to prohibit smoking farther away from the entrances to its sites in Springfield, Lincoln, Jacksonville, Hillsboro, Taylorville and Decatur, said Mark Kuhn, the physician group practice's chief administrative officer.

At least two other central Illinois health-care providers are considering outdoor smoking bans: Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, which employs 1,180 people in Springfield, and Blessing Hospital in Quincy, which employs more than 2,000 people.

Among other local employers, state government, which employs 17,000 people in Sangamon County, restricts smoking to certain indoor areas or allows it outside, depending on the work site.

Other employers allow smoking only outdoors, including Horace Mann Educators Corp., AIG American General and The State Journal- Register. The Springfield Public Schools, like other public schools statewide, have prohibited smoking on their property since the early 1990s, based on state law.

Smoking was common at hospital nursing stations and in patient rooms in the 1970s, but as knowledge expanded about cigarette smoking, the nation's No. 1 preventable cause of death, hospitals did more to discourage smoking.

Most area hospitals and other health-care providers have banned indoor smoking for employees and visitors for a decade or more. Memorial and St. John's stopped allowing even limited indoor smoking by certain patients three years ago.

Now, the hospitals are joining several hundred others among the 4,800 U.S. hospitals in a trend of eliminating smoking outdoor. In Illinois, at least 10 Chicago-area hospitals maintain smoke-free campuses, including Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge and Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood.

St. John's will ask that employees not smoke on public sidewalks, although the hospital can't prohibit it, Al Myers said. Memorial hasn't figured out how it will deal with smoking on sidewalks, Bente said.

Memorial and Springfield Clinic this year instituted $10-a-month higher health-insurance premiums for employees who are smokers in recognition of the higher health-care costs they typically incur.

Source: State Journal Register

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