Morgantown Hospitals go Tobacco-Free
MORGANTOWN — Three major health care providers in Morgantown are now completely tobacco-free.
West Virginia University Hospital, HealthSouth Rehabilitation and Monongalia General Hospital have banned tobacco use on their campuses.
In a ceremony Thursday, WVU Hospital made it clear that there’s no long a place for tobacco use anywhere on their campus.
“We moved the smoking booths out,” said the hospital’s president Bruce McClymonds. “We’re donating them to the university and to Mountain Line Transit and we thought that was sort of a symbolic way of saying that this change is happening.”
The change was announced 90 days ago, giving the hospitals and their staff, patients, and visitors time to adjust to the new policy.
“Smoking contributes a tremendous amount to bad health, said Dr. Christopher Colenda, the new WVU Health Sciences Center (HSC) chancellor, “and ultimately death for many patients so I think we need to lead by example to provide a smoke-free environment it’s an important thing or all of us to understand and to accept.”
Some are still learning to accept it. Immediately after the ceremony, smokers were crossed the green line painted between the hospital and HSC campus to light up, some standing in front of “No Smoking” signs.
That green line marks 50 feet from the HSC campus, which did not take part in the tobacco ban, but it’s indoor tobacco ban extends that distance. The line runs into the WVU Hospital campus though, leaving tobacco-users with only select restricted areas.
The Hospital is trying to help ease the transition.
“We’ve organized some additional tobacco cessation classes,” McClymonds said. “We’re offering nicotine therapy for those who want it, free to our employees for the next three months, we’re offering a number of other resources to employees and to patients and visitors to enable them to get through the day without nicotene and maybe to enable at least some of them to quit.”
Dr. Colenda hopes his campus will soon join the tobacco ban. Not only did he speak at Thursday’s ceremony, he pitched in and put a shoulder to the smoking hut as crews loaded it onto a trailer.
He plans to bring a tobacco-ban for the entire HSC campus before the Board of Governors at their next meeting.
“From my perspective,” he said, “I’d much rather see someone do a lap around the parking lot than to come out and do a smoking break. That’s how strongly I feel about it.”
The HSC was originally part of the tobacco-free plan, but it was never put on the agenda of the university’s Board of Governors.
WVU President Dr. James Clements has organized a task force to examine the possibility of a tobacco ban on all WVU property.
Copyright 2009 West Virginia Media, by Stacy Moniot
