Hospital campus to go smoke-free

The hospital is scheduled to implement a new smoke-free campus policy at the start of the new year.

Wrangell Medical Center administrators and key staff signed the new policy on October 24, to take effect on January 1. Currently the hospital sports designated smoking areas for staff, patients and visitors, one of the few hospitals in the state still to do so, reckons Scott Glaze, WMC compliance and risk manager. Its health provision counterpart Alaska Island Community Services has had such a policy in place since February 2015.

The new policy would require people on hospital property or using its vehicles to abstain from smoking. It was developed with the assistance of Southeast Alaska Rural Health Consortium’s Tobacco Policy program, based on other policies similarly employed around the state. SEARHC educator Tammi Meissner will help arrange for new signage for the hospital to use as well, Glaze explained.

WMC had held off on taking a smoke-free step for so long in part because some of its long-term care residents were tobacco users. Without wanting to inconvenience them or else have to “grandfather” a user or two into a smoke-free environment, Glaze explained the hospital instead waited until an opportunity arose. Right now none of the LTC residents are smokers, so the time seemed prime.

Glaze, hospital CEO Robert Rang, chief of staff Dr. Lynn Prysunka and other key staff members signed the policy, which gives smokers a little more than two months to adjust to the transition.

“We’re doing that so we have time to let staff and community members to know this is happening,” Glaze said.

The hospital will also be offering cessation aids to help staff kick the habit.

Its decision is the latest in a string of similar smoke-free policy adoptions by other local businesses and entities. Providing a timeline, Meissner noted that since the Elks Lodge adopted such a policy in May 2014, 12 others have likewise done so officially. Many other apartments, restaurants, bars and workplaces are informally smoke-free, lacking an adopted policy. Such policies make them eligible for state assistance for signage and other materials, she explained.

WMC’s addition to that number comes ahead of the annual “Great American Smokeout” on November 16, a day designated by the American Cancer Society for tobacco users to finally quit. Because tobacco use is connected to one in three cancer-related deaths in the United States each year, the organization has since 1977 used the date to encourage people to be aware of the risks and to take action.

“Despite the absence of a local clean indoor air ordinance in Wrangell, many local businesses have taken actions to protect the health of employees and patrons by instituting their own smoke-free indoor policies, with widespread community support,” Meissner commented. “This appears to be the time for the Wrangell Assembly to pass a local ordinance to eliminate secondhand smoke in all businesses and help establish standard distances from windows, doors and ventilation areas to protect those who choose not to smoke.”