Area hospital employees to be tobacco-free by next year
By Chloé Morrisonchloem@thedailytimes.com
Originally published: January 28. 2010 3:01AM
Last modified: January 28. 2010 7:13AM
Blount Memorial Hospital's security supervisor Rick Silvis compared the hospital's new ban on tobacco products to helmet laws — some people don't want to comply, but it's the healthiest thing for the community.
“I think it is a social pressure thing,” Silvis, a smoker of about four years, said Wednesday. “What does society think we ought to do to improve ourselves? Some people say it is none of your business and there is a lot of validity to that, but in a health care environment, it's like, who are we to be telling you how to stay healthy if we're not doing that?”
At a Wednesday morning press conference, officials from five area hospitals — Blount Memorial Hospital, Covenant Health, East Tennessee Children's Hospital, Mercy Health Partners and The University of Tennessee Medical Center — announced that employees must be tobacco-free while at work by Jan. 1, 2011.
Blount Memorial's policy is still being formed, Jennie Bounds, BMH director of public relations and marketing, said.
“Over the course of the next 11 months, a committee — made up of both smokers and nonsmokers — will continue to address the specifics of Blount Memorial's policy and the needs of employees who use tobacco products,” she said in an e-mail.
The joint effort is an initiative aimed at promoting health and well-being of the entire community, officials said.
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