Hospital to smokers: move your butts off campus

Published Sunday, March 23, 2008

By Chris Butler

A few unhappy smokers may mistake it as an April Fool's Day joke, but officials at Wise Regional Health System in Decatur said they will forbid anyone from smoking on hospital grounds, even outside, starting April 1.

The change will make for a more healthy environment for visitors and employees, hospital administrators said, although a few hospital employees have expressed their displeasure with it.

The new policy affects anyone who wants to smoke on the hospital's sidewalks, parking lots or at other Wise Regional Health System facilities, including its imaging center and its west campus, said Shannon Puphal, spokeswoman for the hospital.

"Anyone who wants to smoke will have to go completely off our campus," Puphal said, although people may still smoke in their parked cars on hospital grounds.

Visitors to Wise Regional could see several cigarette butts lying on the grass outside the hospital this week, despite posted signs warning visitors that they cannot smoke within 75 feet of the hospital's entrance, at least for the time being. New signs will soon warn visitors and employees to light up off hospital grounds completely.

Hospital staff has already removed all of the ashtrays from the hospital's main entrance, Puphal said.

"We've had very positive feedback. Most of the people who work here are behind it - even our employees who smoke," Puphal said.

A hospital employee who spoke on condition of anonymity, however, said she doesn't smoke, but she and many of her co-workers oppose the new policy.

Other hospitals in the Metroplex, however, have banned smoking, and hospital administrators felt it was time to do the same, Puphal said.

"Obviously there are areas of the hospital where smokers congregate, especially near emergency room areas. There have been times when smoke drifts into the hospital and that causes tremendous concern for our patients," Puphal said.

Sam Nettles, publisher of the United Smoker's Pro-Choice Newsletter in Hutto, said hospital administrators should reconsider their smoke-free policy.

"I think that sick people and old people are being punished more than anyone else for something that isn't illegal. The hospitals are the worst because doctors have lied about the effects of smoking because they themselves can't make a correct diagnosis about what's wrong with somebody's health," Nettles said.

The hospital's board of directors voted in favor of the smoke-free policy last November, Puphal said.