DANVILLE — As Valley hospitals continue to enforce newly minted tobacco-free policies, two health systems are giving some patients a free pass on the restriction.
Geisinger Medical Center, Danville, and Berwick Hospital Center are keeping an exemption in place for a few behavioral health patients who face challenges that exceed the stress of having to forgo a smoke break.
Geisinger is allowing some patients in its Behavioral Health Unit to smoke on its recreation deck under the supervision of staff, who like other employees are still restricted from smoking on campus.
The deck can only be accessed by those patients in the unit, according to Tom Schaeffer, Geisinger’s public relations and marketing coordinator.
“It’s allowed at certain times during the day,” Mr. Schaeffer said. “Since many of those patients are in crisis or are suffering from mental illness, from a clinical perspective, it’s not the ideal time to ask them to take on the task of trying to quit smoking.”
Mr. Schaeffer said Geisinger provides those patients with education materials and smoking cessation aides if they’re interested in quitting. He added that behavioral health patients who suffer from another illness, such as asthma, or anything in which smoking would compound their medical condition, are not allowed to smoke.
“This policy is only for patients who are seeking inpatient services in the Behavioral Health Unit,” Mr. Schaeffer said.
Jackie Ridall, Berwick’s director of human resources, said the Berwick hospital is continuing a similar policy even though it has become a tobacco-free campus.
Berwick and Geisinger are among several area health systems that joined the Tobacco Free Healthcare of Central Pennsylvania coalition spurred on by ACTION Health Inc. in Sunbury, which launched a campaign this summer to recruit local hospitals and health-care groups to go tobacco-free.
Evangelical Community Hospital in Lewisburg, Sunbury Community Hospital and Outpatient Center, Shamokin Area Community Hospital and Susquehanna Health System are also involved.
The coalition, which also includes support from Clinical Outcomes Group in Northumberland and the American Heart Association, is working collectively toward tobacco-free health care.
Officials from Sunbury and Shamokin hospitals, as well as the Susquehanna system in Williamsport, said their facilities have gone completely tobacco-free.
n E-mail comments to jnorth@dailyitem.com.
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