Doctors Hospital Goes Smoke-Free
Lanham Facility Is 2nd in County to Institute Such a Ban

By Jonathan Stein
Gazette Staff Writer
Thursday, March 27, 2008

Smoking on the 35-acre campus of Doctors Community Hospital in Lanham is no longer an option.

The hospital instituted a campus-wide smoking ban last Thursday, joining Southern Maryland Hospital Center in Clinton as the only county hospitals that do not allow smoking on their grounds.

Fort Washington Hospital, Laurel Regional Hospital and Prince George's Hospital Center in Cheverly allow smoking on their campuses, said Jessica Ronin, communications director for the Maryland Hospital Association, which maintains a database of smoke-free hospitals.

Fort Washington is in the planning stages of becoming smoke-free, Ronin said. Neither Laurel Regional Hospital nor Prince George's Hospital Center has indicated a desire to go smoke-free, she said.

"It's been well documented, the harmful effects of smoking on people's health, and we felt our entire campus needed to be smoke-free," said Philip Down, president of Doctors Community Hospital. "Being a hospital and health-care entity, we want to lead by example in this regard."

Smokers will have to go off campus to light up, Down said.

He said enforcement will be up to members of the hospital's staff, who will be asked to remind any smokers of the new policy. "The feeling is that after that, no further action will need to be taken," Down said.

"No penalties should be necessary," he said. "Our intent with this is not to penalize people. Our intent is to help improve the quality of their life. What we want to do is not only prohibit smoking on our campus but also take on more of an educational role."

Jen Smith, a hospital spokeswoman, said that as part of the effort to educate the public about the dangers of smoking, hospital staffers last week offered blood pressure screenings, distributed pamphlets about nicotine replacement therapy and provided free nicotine gum to anyone interested in quitting smoking.

She said a steady stream of people took advantage of the opportunities, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. March 20.

Eric Mickens, a Greenbelt resident waiting at a bus stop on the hospital campus that day, said he is in favor of the new policy.

"It doesn't bother me at all," he said. "At a hospital, it really should be smoke-free."

But not everyone was in favor of the ban.

Jim Williams, a patient with multiple sclerosis at the Magnolia Square Nursing and Rehabilitation Center on the hospital's campus, sat outside in his wheelchair smoking a cigarette.

The new policy is wrong, he said. "It's discriminatory. It's not going to stop me from smoking here. This is my right."

Robyn Blackmon, a nurse chatting with Williams outside the center, said she, too, does not like the new policy.

"It's really absurd," she said. "There should at least be a smoking area that people can go to somewhere on the campus."