TERRE HAUTE —
Terre Haute Regional Hospital is making a move to a totally smoke-free hospital campus.
The hospital has signs marking the change, effective Nov. 12, a date planned to correlate with the week of the Great American Smokeout, said Terre Haute Regional CEO Mary Ann Conroy.
The hospital’s policy has been smoke free in its buildings and within 50 feet of entrances. However, smoking was permitted outside of that range and in hospital parking lots. A decision to move to a total smoke-free campus was made by a hospital administrative team this spring, ahead of a July 1 state law that requires no smoking within 8 feet of a public building entrance, Conroy said.
The hospital, “recognizing that second-hand smoke and smoking is not healthy, and knowing that the American Cancer Society and our physicians and our board wanted to position the hospital as a healthy environment for those not only inside but also those on the campus, made a decision to go forward with a smoke-free, tobacco-free campus,” Conroy said.
In addition to signage, the hospital is communicating the date of smoke-free change with its vendors, physicians and businesses around the hospital as well as its employees.
“It correlates to what is going on in healthcare,” Conroy said. “We know that the cost to provide care to smokers, along with the cost to provide care to other conditions, such as obesity, is higher. It is in everyone’s best interest to make sure we offer an opportunity to be healthier.”
The hospital has a tobacco-free task force to help employees and patients, who chose to do so, go through a smoking cessation program.
“Many hospitals already have this in effect,” Conroy added of smoke-free campuses.
Union Hospital banned smoking on all of its property on July 1, 2005. Hospital officials, at the time, announced that permitting smoking anywhere on hospital property was a deterrent to the hospital’s goal to serve the health of the community.
Reporter Howard Greninger can be reached at (812) 231-4204 or howard.greninger@
tribstar.com.
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Regional campus going smoke-free
Hospital making change in correlation with Great American Smokeout
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