Posted on 09/30/2006 8:41:28 AM PDT by SheLion
GRAND RAPIDS -- Spectrum Health and Saint Mary's Health Care will require all their employees to not use tobacco at any time during their work shift beginning January 1.
The staffs of both hospitals will need to arrive without smelling of smoke, and they can't use any tobacco products until they leave hospital property after their shift.
Metro Health is also joining in the Smoke-Free Work Day Every Day campaign.
In 2003, the Grand Rapids hospitals became the first in the country to jointly declare their hospital campuses smoke-free. Today, more than 30 Michigan hospitals have smoke-free campuses.
This takes it a step further.
The three hospitals are working together to help employees quit the habit between now and the first of the year. The hospitals said the main reason for making this decision was to improve patient care.
"Everyday our staff tell patients who use tobacco to quit," said Bill Rietscha, Vice President of Facilities for Spectrum Health. "We can't say that with credibility while smelling of tobacco ourselves."
Tom Karel, the Vice President of Human Resources for Saint Mary's, echoed that. "We have delivered this message to each person who walks in a door at Saint Mary's, and this is the next step in a long term effort to ensure the health of our employees, patients, visitors and our entire community."
Among the other reasons the hospitals cited were the health risks to their employees and the reduced productivity related to smoking.
Not everyone is thrilled with the plan. Midge Birdsall has worked in health care for more than 30 years. She knows smoking isn't good for her, but she said the decision to quit should be hers and hers alone.
"I'm not doing something illegal so I have a problem with them telling me how to run my lifestyle when it's not affecting my work," she said. "I'm not sure how they can tell me I can't go off campus on my break. I guess I'll find out January 1."
24 Hour News 8 talked with a local labor law attorney who said the hospitals can fire employees who disobey the rules.
It's a growing trend. In January 2005, KVCC banned smoking for all new full-time employees. Lansing-based Weyco, a company that administers health benefits, also went smoke-free. Several employees left who refused to take a test to determine if they're using tobacco.
The answer is Grand Rapids is in Kent county. And yeah, it's starting to get a little too politically correct around here.
Well, states can't balance their budgets without smoker's tax dollars. They spew they want smoke free yet they use cigarette taxes to balance their budgets. They talk out of both sides of their filthy mouths.
I think all smokers should start rolling their own. A heck of a lot cheaper and no big taxes. And all the grocery stores and Smoke Shops in town sell bags of tobacco and the filtered tubes and the rolling machines. It sure paid off for me!
Fascist alert! Michiganistan moves up on my list of states to avoid. Just behind Mass. and California now, unfortunately I have to go to Boston on business often.
Don't forget to add MAINE to your list!
The legacy of decades of Democrat corruption and organized crime control of government in the 'common-wealth' (what a HUGE LIE that term is) of Massholia is awe inspiring. I imagine it's like visiting a Soviet republic at the hight of the Cold War.
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I hate to say this, but the staff in our hospitals are pretty hefty! They will be next on the agenda. LOSE WEIGHT OR ELSE!
Here's another existential threat to worry about while obsessing about health.
Oh I know it. So much going on in the world that is such high priority, yet these anti-smoking idiots have tunnel vision. All they care about is to get people from smoking.
If we are blown to bits one day, it won't matter one iota if we ever smoked or not!
As if they don't already! Nursing staffs are in short demand today I hear. Pity.
The three hospitals are working together to help employees quit the habit between now and the first of the year. The hospitals said the main reason for making this decision was to improve patient care.
Yes, but do you realize how miserable they are going to make it on the employees who smoke? Trying to coerce them into quitting before the 1st of the year?
LOL! Agreed.
Private Company? Should have all rights to say if their employees can smoke...same as any other private business...
That would be Kent County. The geniuses on the city commission are about to toughen smoking laws throughout the city too.
Well, I respect what you say. But what is next? Fat Classes? It just never ends.
And I am sure most educated smokers today would never smoke around the kids. (Did I say that?)
A lot of people are rolling their own now. My cousin says rolling his own runs to about $11 a carton. He buys the filter tubes and has a machine that rolls 2 at a time. He's pretty good at pumping out a carton of cigarettes in about 20 minutes.
That's too bad. We used to look as the Western side of Michigan as a place to run to when it got too bad over here near Lake Erie as far as Liberalism.
Is Grand Rapids where there was so much gang trouble a few years ago, or was that Battle Creek?
Is your hospitol perfume-free?
I guess I should have explained why I say that. Anything that makes people unhappy at election time, they tend to take it out on the folks in office.
In Washtenaw county it's illegal to smoke in any place of business and there's a push to make it illegal on the property of any place of business.
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