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• HLS HSC halts ban on smoking: Other area hospitals ready for Nov. 19 

A smoking ban slated to take effect next week at WVU's Robert C. Byrd Health Sciences Center (HSC) has been postponed indefinitely.

The HSC, Monongalia Health System, HealthSouth Mountain-View Regional Rehabilitation Hospital and WVU Healthcare -- which includes WVU Hospitals and University Health Associates (UHA) -- announced plans earlier this year to eliminate on-site smoking by the date of the American Cancer Society's Great American Smokeout, Nov. 19.

However, the HSC can't implement a smoking ban without approval from the WVU Board of Governors (BOG). The board met Friday, but the smoking policy was not on the agenda.

Dr. Fred Butcher, vice president for planning and operations, said the HSC will wait to see what happens with a campuswide smoking policy review initiated by WVU President James Clements.

"I'm absolutely confident we'll get there," Butcher said. "We just need to go through the appropriate process." . . .

At Friday's BOG meeting, Clements said a task force is being formed to review the smoking policy. Faculty, students and staff will be included, but Clements said it will likely take time to address the issue.

It can take a year or more to address a campus smoking policy, he said.

"The discussion about that is fairly complex," Clements said. "When are you on campus, when are you off campus. ... It's a complicated issue. I just want to allow people to have input."

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• State bans smoking in mental hospitals 

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has learned that the state plans to ban smoking in the seven state mental hospitals on Jan. 5, a steep challenge considering the high percentage of smokers among those with mental illness.

But Tom Wilson, spokesman for the state Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities, said the measure will make the patients and facilities healthier. He also said the ban could advance patients' treatment, helping them to give up an often addictive habit.

Wilson acknowledged the challenges, pointing to national statistics that show 75 percent of people with mental illness or addictions smoke, and that nearly half of the cigarettes consumed in the country are smoked by people with mental illness.

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• Wear | Hospital smoking shelters U-turn 

Sunderland Royal Hospital is "reluctantly" reinstating shelters for smokers in its grounds.

Health bosses admit they are unable to stop people disobeying the no-smoking rule and lighting up just outside the hospital's main doors.

This had led to complaints by patients and staff about second-hand smoke drifting into the building.

Purpose-built shelters, which were dismantled two years ago, are to be set up again.

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• Up in smoke; tobacco to be banned from Naval hospital 

Sailors and civilian personnel employed at the Robert E. Bush Naval Hospital will soon have to change their tobacco habits while at work.

Beginning Jan. 1, military and civilian personnel will no longer be authorized to use tobacco products of any form while on naval hospital and all other naval medical care center grounds.

The policy will also go into effect aboard Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center Bridgeport, Calif., and Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, Calif.

Martha Hunt, the Health Promotions and Awareness coordinator at the hospital, said the move to ban tobacco from hospital grounds has been a long time coming.

“This process began in July 2008,” said the Pontiac, Mich., native. “In July, the Surgeon General of the Navy [Vice Adm. Adam M. Robinson Jr.] signed a policy encouraging the ban of all tobacco use on naval hospital campuses.”

In the document, Robinson challenged naval commanders and senior enlisted advisors to make the move to tobacco-free naval medical facilities quick and thorough.

“The unnecessary, harmful effects of tobacco on our service members and the burden on our healthcare system must be addressed,” said the Louisville, Ky., native in Navy Policy 09-009. “Our strong commitment to the health and well-being of our service members is most clearly evident by our own examples of a tobacco-free lifestyle.”

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• Schwarzenegger vetos bills prohibiting smoking on hospital grounds and sale of e-cigarettes 

On October 11, Governor Schwarzeneggar vetoed Assembly Bill 574 which would have banned smoking on hospital grounds. He commented that hospitals have their own authority to prohibit smoking as the reason for his veto.

Schwarzeneggar also vetoed Senate Bill 400, which would have banned the sale of electronic cigarettes as well. He cited pending litigation as his reason for a veto.

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• EDITORIAL: Blowing Smoke 

On Wednesday evening, the student organization Hopkins Kicks Butts met to discuss its proposal that the University move ashtrays away from the doorways of campus buildings in order to prevent secondhand smoke from overwhelming students on their way to classes . . .

As a private university, Hopkins certainly has the right to ban smoking on campus. But perhaps we do not need to go that far just yet.

Smokers: The News-Letter will continue to support your right to smoke on campus. In exchange, please respect the rights of non-smokers.

Why don't you voluntarily move away from the doorways while smoking? Standing there and allowing smoke to enter campus buildings and the lungs of your non-smoking peers will only ignite tensions that will ultimately result in a campus-wide ban.

And hey, while you're at it, try to quit.

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• Butt out on our hospital grounds 

SMOKING will be banned on the grounds of all public hospitals from May 31 next year.

Nurses in uniform and patients in gowns have been a common sight smoking outside hospitals since lighting up indoors was banned in the 1970s.

Under the new rules, staff and patients will be offered "at-cost", or free, nicotine replacement therapy but the blanket ban seems certain to push some smokers out to the footpaths. . . .

The SmokeFree Australia coalition yesterday called for all Australian governments to make all workplaces smoke-free, including outdoors, after new studies showed smoke-free laws reduce heart attacks by even more than previously thought.

The introduction of the bans will coincide with World No Tobacco Day.

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• Unions ready to fight hospital smoking ban 

HOSPITAL unions are drawing up a battle plan to fight a smoking ban introduced earlier this year.

Staffside, a collaboration of Unison and Unite, says staff are unhappy with the move, which was brought in on July 1.

The ban is not legally enforceable but patients, visitors and staff are being asked to respect it.

Union members who staged a protest about the ban in June, say it infringes human rights and people should have a choice about smoking.

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• Smoke No Longer Found In European Hospitals 

Tobacco use is prohibited in hospitals in many European countries, although levels of compliance with this regulation differ. A study carried out by researchers from the Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO) has shown for the first time that exposure to environmental tobacco smoke in European hospitals is "low", and "without any notable differences" between them.

Europe wants to see smoking in all closed public places banned by 2012. However, to date only 10 European countries Spain is not among them are applying this regulation comprehensively. Now a research study has described the levels of environmental tobacco smoke in European hospitals and has shown for the first time that exposure is "low" and "without any notable differences between them".

The study, carried out in 2001 in 30 hospitals throughout seven European countries (Germany, Austria, Belgium, France, Greece, Romania and Spain) measured levels of particulates with a diameter of 2.5 micros (known as PM2.5) (μg/m3) or below, which indicate the presence of environmental tobacco smoke, at six standard sites in each hospital.

Esteve Fern�ndez, lead author of the study and a researcher at the ICO, tells SINC "it is important to measure compliance with laws by regularly measuring levels of environmental tobacco smoke". To do this, the experts suggest that national and European regulations to control tobacco addiction should ban smoking in health establishments without any exceptions.

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• Majority of US hospitals will have smoke-free campuses by end of year 

While hospital buildings are often smoke-free, a new study finds that by February 2008, 45 percent of US hospitals had adopted "smoke-free campus" policies, meaning that all the property owned or leased by the hospital, both indoors and outdoors, was smoke-free and there were no designated smoking areas on those properties.

The study, "The Adoption of Smoke-Free Hospital Campuses in the United States," is the first of its kind to examine the national prevalence of smoke-free hospital campus policies. It was conducted by The Joint Commission, the world's largest healthcare standards setting and accrediting body, and researchers from the Henry Ford Health System's Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention. The study was funded by the Substance Abuse Policy Research Program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and appears in the online version of the peer-reviewed journal Tobacco Control.

"Besides the 45 percent that already had smoke-free campuses, another 15 percent indicated that they would be implementing similar policies in the near future. Hence, it is safe to assume on the basis of these results that the majority of US hospitals will have smoke-free campuses by the end of 2009," according to Scott C. Williams, PsyD, of The Joint Commission.

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• Smoke-free policies at American hospitals  

Smokers still huddle outside the doors of more than half of America's hospitals -- and 65 percent of Virginia's -- a new study found.

But the study, published this week in the medical journal Tobacco Control, says more hospitals are moving to having a completely smoke-free campus.

In central Virginia, HCA's Chippenham and Johnston-Willis campuses went tobacco-free -- even banning smokeless tobacco -- last year, said Karen Nelson, executive director for marketing.

In November, HCA's Henrico Doctors', Parham Doctors' and Retreat Doctors' campuses will follow suit. John Randolph Medical Center in Hopewell will go tobacco-free sometime after that, Nelson said.

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• Psychiatric patients’ rights not violated by NHS ban on their smoking  

Court of Appeal Published August 10, 2009 Regina (E) v Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust Regina (N) v Secretary of State for Health Before Lord Clarke of Stone-cum-Ebony, Master of the Rolls, Lord Justice Keene and Lord Justice Moses Judgment July 24, 2009

A policy of prohibiting smoking in the premises of an NHS trust, which had the consequence of a ban on smoking for those detained in a high security psychiatric hospital, did not violate the patients' human rights and was lawful.

Similarly a temporary rather than a permanent exemption for mental health units from legislation prohibiting smoking in premises to which the public had access was lawful.

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• Nottinghamshire | Patients lose smoking ban appeal 

Patients at a psychiatric hospital have lost a legal appeal over the right to smoke following the 2007 smoking ban.

Two patients at high-security Rampton hospital in Nottinghamshire maintained the NHS ban on smoking violated their human right to smoke in their own home.

But the Court of Appeal has ruled the policy is lawful and the right to smoke is not covered by the European Convention on Human Rights.

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• Hospital finds staff break smoking ban because of cigarette addiction  

Addenbrooke's in Cambridge is facing criticism for funding research on why staff flouted a smoking ban across its site. Cambridge University researchers found Addenbrooke's workers were not smoking outside wards for pleasure or to avoid feeling low - but were driven by "psychological addiction" and "chemical dependence".

However, since the research began, Addenbrooke's has bowed to pressure from staff and patients and scrapped the ban on smoking.

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• Defiant smokers vs young cancer patient 

Six-year-old Hailey Ryan-Leach is a heartbreaking sight as she enters Wollongong Hospital with a protective face mask to undergo post-chemotherapy treatment.

Her little body has been slugged with six courses of chemotherapy since she was diagnosed with lymphoma.

But the mask isn't a result of her disease. It is necessary to protect her from the haze of toxic cigarette smoke at the Loftus St entrance. . . .

Hailey's father, Todd Leach, is outraged at having to strap a mask to his daughter's face to protect her weakened immune system from the cigarette smoke.

He is calling for greater policing of a cigarette ban that is supposed to protect visitors to the region's health facilities.

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