Smoking Ban Hurting Us????

[mcmike55]

Recently, our small rural hospital layed off just over 20. A mixture of RN's, LPN', aids and others such as ward secretaries, all mostly in nursing dept.

Other areas, are going home early, etc, in an effort to cut back. These measures are coming in areas impacted by our low in pt census.

Our out patient services, x-ray, lab and surgery have been been having at, near, or above average levels, but few are being admitted.

There are several reasons being given. The flu, thankfully, has not been an issue thus far. The weather has been spring like up till now. And, the talk is, that our smoking ban, instituted about a year ago is driving away our admissions.

The administration says absolutely not. I tend to agree, being as this started about a year ago, but I am looking at it from a non-smokers point of view.

I not sure there are hard fact numbers to argue the point either way. Also, frankly, I don't see how we could go back on the ban now. To me it would be sending the wrong message.

Our administrative people have always tried very hard to do the best for our hospital, and has kept us from being taken over by bigger organizations, which no one thinks would be good for us, or our service area. However, there are 20 some people looking for other jobs right now.

My question, has anyone else starting a smoking ban, and has it affected your facility.

By the way, Ohio is likely to have a state wide smoking ban on the ballot this fall, from what I've heard.

Thoughts/opinions??? Mike

[caroladybelle, BSN, RN]

Many hospitals nationwide, if not most, are banning smoking. So it would seem to make little difference. In fact, you may have gained patients that cannot stand to be around smoke and appreciate the ban. In addition, you may have lost some staff that cannot remain smoke free and choose to work elsewhere, and have to use less staff to chaperone smoking patients/give fewer stat respiratory treatments on return to the floor.

In fact many bars and clubs in places that have banned smoking, have often had increased revenues from the nonsmokers that could not handle being a smoke filled environment that make up from any lost revenues from smokers. I personally went club hopping more in cities that ban smoking, than those that permit it.