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Smoking Ban Goes into Effect at Tucson, Ariz.-Based Health Care Office Network

Posted on: Wednesday, 22 March 2006, 00:00 CST

By Thomas Stauffer, The Arizona Daily Star, Tucson

Mar. 21--Smoking went out with a whimper Monday at Carondelet Health Network's hospitals, clinics and offices.

The kickoff of the tobacco-free policy at the Tucson-based health-care provider network was free of provocation, pickets and paddy wagons patrolling the grounds.

Carondelet officially announced the policy in November to allow staffers, patients and visitors time to prepare for the change, but the company has been headed down a tobacco-free path for years, said Greg Angle, chief executive officer of St. Mary's Hospital, 1601 W. St. Mary's Road.

While its hospitals and clinics have long limited smoking to isolated outdoor areas, Carondelet's new policy extends to the entire grounds, including parking lots and even the interiors of vehicles with their windows rolled up.

"This has really been a phased-in approach over a number of years, and some of the network has actually been out in front of this effort," Angle said, noting that the Carondelet Medical Group division adopted the policy last July 1.

"Both my parents died from smoking, so yes, I absolutely agree with the policy," said teacher Julie Walters, who was on her way to a medical appointment at St. Mary's. "It's nice for me not to have to worry about secondhand smoke here anymore." The policy affects less than 10 percent of Carondelet's 3,751 local employees, Angle estimated.

"Obviously, the clear majority is very much in favor of this," he said. "We were very proactive in offering a number of smoking-cessation products and services to staff, and we've already had some really positive outcomes." Carondelet is working with local architects to remodel former smoking areas into "healing gardens," Angle said.

"What's really nice is that these will now be areas that all people can take advantage of," he said.

Tucson Medical Center will be similarly freshening the air at all but one outdoor area due to a policy announced last summer than took effect Jan. 16, TMC spokesman Mike Letson said.

The hospital, at 5301 E. Grant Road, now has just one designated smoking spot on the entire campus, and it's away from clinical areas, Letson said.

A tobacco-free policy makes perfect sense to Salvador Nieves, who was visiting his father at St. Mary's.

"It's a hospital, so it should be a smoke-free environment," Nieves said. "A lot of the people here are on oxygen, and there could be patients having nicotine fits because they smell it on a worker's clothes, and the patient can't walk out and have one, so it's a really good idea." Josie Baker said she doesn't appreciate the policy, but she acknowledged that Carondelet did a good job of letting people know it was in place.

"Oh, yeah -- I know I can't smoke here. They have signs everywhere," said Baker, an administrative assistant with the Pascua Yaqui Tribe who was visiting a friend at St. Mary's.

Baker was asked how many cigarettes she normally would have smoked in the three hours she spent at the hospital.

"I would have smoked two, and I did smoke two out there in the parking lot," she said. "I was looking around, going 'Oh no -- here comes security.' But they went past me." Carondelet officials have stressed that the policy will be enacted not with roaming tobacco police but with a "soft and positive approach" of educating and referring smokers into cessation programs, Angle said.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Arizona Daily Star, Tucson

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Source: The Arizona Daily Star

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