SMOKE FREE HOSPITALS inside and out

What are your thoughts on smoke free hospitals with no zones inside or outside?

Being from North Carolina, I never thought I'd see the day but, I was wrong. Tomorrow morning we go smoke free.

[HappyNurse2005, RN]

well, considering doctors/nurses are supposed to first promote health, it makes sense!

we are no smoking inside, but all have outside smoking areas, usually some sort of little gazebo nearby.

love, rose

I believe it's a JCAHO requirement. Also, your hospital can loose points during the JCAHO survey if cigarette butts are found within 25 (or maybe it's 50) feet from entrances/exits. Even though I'm a smoker, I think "smoke-free" is a great idea. Smoking is a nasty habit.

[Nurse Ratched, RN]

Our psych ward just went smoke-free this month :balloons: .

No major crises, no problems - a few of our frequent fliers don't want to come back, but we weren't really doing anything for them but providing very expensive room and board.

We will go smoke-free on the grounds as of January 1. Truth be told, I think the staff will have a harder time with it than patients.

well, considering doctors/nurses are supposed to first promote health, it makes sense!

we are no smoking inside, but all have outside smoking areas, usually some sort of little gazebo nearby.

love, rose

I hate the idea of it. :angryfire I promote a smoking area,AWAY FROM NON-SMOKERS, but I am a smoker and there are times that I REALLY,REALLY, need to smoke.( A quick smoke break might I add.) I despise smokers who abuse it and take like 10 breaks on one shift.

As far as" doctors/nurses are suppose to first promote health", well we need to take away caffiene and junk food because that is not healthy either and we all know there are plenty of over weight and over caffinated doctors and nurses out there. :) MYSELF INCLUDED !!

[chip193]

What are your thoughts on smoke free hospitals with no zones inside or outside?

Being from North Carolina, I never thought I'd see the day but, I was wrong. Tomorrow morning we go smoke free.

Sounds like a great idea to me. There's nothing that I hate more than having to find my way through the smoke at the entrance to a building - any building!

[vdutton]

Smoke free is the way to go!...much better now.

[Antikigirl, ASN, RN]

There needs to be a place for smokers I feel. You have stressed out patients and familys and yes..some of them smoke as a coping mech in times of stress and grief. Who am I to tell them that they can't do it if they want to! Heck, how about my diabetics that dive into an entire cake or icecream container in times of stress...shall there be a no sweets zone too, should I badger them and tell them "NO that is unhealthy now give me that...shame on you...that is going to kill you!!!???" Should I yell at their families if THEY eat sweets around said patient and tell them "you are in a no sweets hospital I must ask you to take that filthy habit and get out! You are going to kill my patients through your secondhand sweets!".

Favorable or not favorable, there can be a comprimise when it comes to different peoples coping mechs at hospitals. Plus, the hospitals I worked in...it was like pulling teeth out of the docs mouth to get a darned nicotine patch or gum, it honestly felt like they were torturing them for being a smoker (and nurses too!). Plus, a screaming family member can really calm down and think if you send them out for a smoke to chill out!

A ventilated covered area away from the most populace areas of the hospital..well lit and secure (sometimes they hide these so far away that they are dangerous at night), should be fine...and therefore respecting a LEGAL habit people have.

OH yes, and you betcha..I am a smoker too, and will not work for a facility that doesn't not allow smoking on their grounds! And I have a ton of funny stories and responses from people telling me "your a nurse...you should know better" crap! LOL!!!!!!! Lets say I don't let that one go unanswered too often...and my responses can be Oscar winning for best comedy role! LOL!!!!

While they are at it they can take away our breaks and make us all wear the same color uniforms or even back to the ol whiteys. I agree that non smokers deserve to be protected from us evil smokers but not at our expense either. Smokers have increasingly less rights. It has almost become a type of racism like ughh we are substandard to the population that was lucky enuff to not have this vice.

Okay now I will step off of my soapbox sorry to rant but it does really feel like we are discriminated against.

It is pretty darn easy to get a smoker out of bed for that "ambulate TID" order.

Sounds like PATERNALISM with a great big stick to me

Dont agree with institutions/govenrments or any other "higher body" dictating what we should & should not do. The health care system & insurance companies make plenty of money from smokers. The very least they can do is provide a place for smokers to smoke.

I dont want to inflict my habit on others, but I need somewhere to go to smoke. The non smokers can stay away.

[talaxandra]

I don't smoke and have never smoked.

In Australia it's law that all government buildings (including public hospitals :)) are smoke-free, and that nobody smoke within 5m (or something) of an entrance or window). I agree with safety concerns re: second hand smoke, and understand the concept that we're supposed to promote healthy behaviours, which smoking is clearly not.

However, I agree with all those posters who argue that people (pateints, staff and visitors) who do smoke should have somewhere safe and sheltered to do so. We have smokers huts near every exit to the hospital - they're gazebo-like: enclosed but ventilated, have adequate permieter seating, with a cannister of sand for the butts, and they're monitored in case of emergency.

An acute admission is no time to expect people to quit the habit of a life-time - people are more likely to smoke when they're stressed, and what's more stressful that having someone you care about desparately sick/an awful shift from hell/being told you have some hideous disease?

In addition, smoking helps alleviate some psych symptoms, lessening the need for medication and giving the patients greater control over disease management. I only learned this last year, when one of the students I co-presented with discussed her Masters thesis, which is about this. Until then I always thought psych patients smoked more that the general population because they were bored and the environment encourage it, but I was mistaken. Not that that's not a factor, but... Just a thought :)

I smoked a long time (33 years) and tried to quit almost as long (32 years). My dad died from lung cancer secondary to cigarette smoking. (I wonder about my Mom and all her second hand, passive smoking.) I suffered from tonsillitis and chronic otitis media as a child, with high fevers and the joy of those early penicillin shots (the stuff was in beeswax of all things--hurt like the devil and made a huge, ugly, sore bruise of my tiny back side), all because my father smoked constantly.

You'd think I'd be pretty adamant about smokers and smoking, etc., but I'm not.

However, one of the things I really enjoy these days is not smelling smokey. I think I should be able to walk into a building (especially a hospital) and not have to breathe someone else's smoke (or wear it).

One hospital I worked at had two smoking areas. Both were outside and very nicely decorated (shrubs, benches, flowering plants, etc.). They were shaded--one was actualy a huge gazebo. They were away from the main entrances so that people didn't have to wade through smoke, but close enough that people didn't have to go way out of their way if they wanted to.

It's a nice arrangement if you have the luxury of all that space (and money).

I notice fewer and fewer people smoking these days. I don't think it's a bad thing, personally.

[Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN]

More power to the smoke-free rule inside AND outside.

If people want to smoke, they can do it at their own house or car off of hospital property.

[Tweety, BSN, RN]

I don't smoke and detest smoking. So I'm all for smoke-free inside, not just in hospitals but everywhere.

We're a smoke free place, both inside and out.

The smokers go into all kinds of nooks and crannies to find a place to smoke where people won't see (yeah right) and the patients and visitors still smoke outside where they want and throw their butts all around.

I'm for allowing certain areas to be disgnated smoking areas outside, away from entrances, etc.

No smoking inside our hospital and very few places on the grounds for people to smoke.

I would prefer NO SMOKING at all. Many times smokers ignore the signs around the doors stating that there is no smoking in these areas. So, I get to walk in or out through a cloud of someone else's second hand smoke. No thank you. I would prefer that it not be allowed at all because there is ALWAYS going to be someone that abuses the priviledge. And yes, it is a priviledge...NOT a right.

[Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN]

I dont want to inflict my habit on others, but I need somewhere to go to smoke. The non smokers can stay away.

It's a little hard for them to stay away when their co-workers reek of the smoke smell when they come back from break.

Well, the hospital that I work in enforces that employees that want to smoke, must clock out, get in their car, and drive off campus for a smoke break. There is SO much controversy regarding this, i.e.- if a wreck, flat tire, car stalls, the employee cannot return to work prompty. It continues under investigation, but has remained a policy since I have been there (7 years now). There is a designated place for patients and family to smoke, outside of the ED. I want to know how a hospital goes smoke free outside for patients and families, as we are now such a society all about "customer satisfaction". Let's face it, people DO smoke. How can others regulate that smoking OUTSIDE is prohibited?!?!?! There are far worse, and many more pollutants in the air......