Smoking ban kicks in on hospital district property

By: ANDREA MOSS - North County Times | Saturday, January 5, 2008 8:27 PM PST ∞

Four days after a smoking ban took effect at Palomar Medical Center and all other Palomar Pomerado Health properties, hospital district administrators said they were receiving lots of praise and no real complaints about the change.

Wally George, chief human resources officer for the district, said Friday that the smoking ban, which took effect Jan. 1, was being met with general acceptance and compliance.

Although handful of people were caught smoking on district property this week, they quickly snuffed out their cigarettes after they were told about the new policy, he said.

Feedback from Palomar Pomerado employees also suggests the majority are happy about the change, said George.

"We've received some phone calls from employees thanking us for doing this, and we've received e-mails from employees thanking us," he said. "I haven't received any nasty comments from employees for doing this."

Smoking is still allowed outside Tri-City Medical Center in Oceanside, which has designated certain outdoor areas for smoking and banned it completely from others. Spokesman Jeff Segal said the coastal hospital district is considering an all-out prohibition.

Like Tri-City, Palomar Pomerado banned smoking inside its buildings several years ago. Patients in the district's behavioral health units were granted the only exception.

The new policy, approved last summer by the board of North County's inland public hospital district, extends the ban to everyone setting foot on any Palomar Pomerado property, including the district's administrative headquarters in Carmel Mountain Ranch and smaller offices the district has scattered around the region.

The change is expected to eliminate clouds of smoky air that sometimes existed just outside the hospitals' emergency rooms and other entrances, where employees and anxious family members waiting for loved ones undergoing medical treatment used to gather to light up.

Palomar Pomerado officials have said complaints were common from nonsmokers who didn't like the idea of having to walk through secondhand smoke.

Hospital administrators had predicted smokers on the district's payroll would have the hardest time adjusting to the no-smoking policy, because many of them use cigarette breaks as a way to cope with job stress. George estimated that 13 percent to 14 percent of Palomar Pomerado's roughly 3,400 employees were in that category.

The district offered its employees free smoking-cessation classes, nicotine patches and other help, in an attempt to help them kick the habit before the ban went into effect.

Two unions that represent Palomar Pomerado workers also supported the smoking ban.

"The reasoning was this is a very important step in the prevention of health problems," said Jill Furillo, a registered nurse and the Southern California director of the California Nurses Association.

Sandi Miller, an administrative assistant in Palomar Medical Center's plant operations and 32-year smoker, served on the advisory panel. She said she "wasn't real happy" when she first heard the policy change was coming.

Though her feelings remain mixed, Miller said, she no longer smokes at work. Co-workers who were lighting up on the job have either followed her lead or now retreat to public sidewalks near the hospital for their cigarette breaks, she said.

"I don't know if I would have stopped anyway," Miller said. "But this gave me the boost to stop at work. .... I'd prefer if it was a smoking facility in case I ever want to have one. But I'm probably going to quit (completely) anyway."

George said the district is developing a portable pager system that would enable people waiting for family members and friends undergoing treatment in the emergency room walk out to the street for smokes without fear of missing anything important.

Contact staff writer Andrea Moss at (760) 739-6654 or amoss@nctimes.com.