Columbia’s health-care workers who smoke might prefer their employers butt out, but by the end of the year, all but one of the local hospitals will go completely smoke free.

Gerik Parmele photo

Deborah Rountree, a nurse who works in the burn unit at University Hospital, takes a break yesterday in the hospital’s employee smoking shelter. She questions a smoke-free mandate by University of Missouri Health Care and Boone Hospital Center. MU Health also intends to reprimand employees who even smell of tobacco smoke.

Smoking in hospital rooms and offices has long been taboo, but officials at both University of Missouri Health Care and Boone Hospital Center announced yesterday a new policy will prohibit smoking on all property owned by the hospitals - for employees and everyone else.

The ban includes all outdoor areas, including green space and parking lots and even extends into vehicles parked on hospital property.

Beginning Sept. 1, MU Health employees can even be reprimanded for smelling like tobacco smoke. MU Health includes University Hospital, Columbia Regional Hospital and Ellis Fischel Cancer Center, as well as several clinics.

The changes at Boone Hospital - which are yet to be finalized - also take effect Sept. 1, but a spokeswoman said the rules won’t be enforced until Jan. 1.

The bans will not affect Truman Memorial Veterans’ Hospital, said spokesman Stephen Gaither, who said he knows of no plan to remove a smoking area outside the hospital.

Administrators at both Boone Hospital and MU Health said the bans are meant to promote healthy lifestyles for their employees and set a good example for patients and visitors.

Although the hospitals have voluntarily initiated the bans, a proposal moving through the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services would require all hospitals in the state, except Veterans Affairs and psychiatric hospitals, to be smoke free by July 2007.

Predictably, the plan had few supporters inside a glassed-in employees’ smoking area outside University Hospital. Darryl Cutts, who works in housekeeping, said he’ll follow the rules but believes they’re unfair.

"I don’t think you should be told what to do on your break, let alone your lunch," said Cutts, 51, who began smoking in his early 20s.

At both MU Health and Boone Hospital, smoking-cessation classes and other aids are being offered at no cost to patients.

Asked whether he might quit tobacco, Cutts said he would - for the workday.

"I’ll try to quit for eight hours a day," he said, grinning as smoke poured from his nostrils. "Seriously, I don’t know if I’m ready to quit. And being told you have to do this, that doesn’t motivate me."

Renae Nicholes, spokeswoman for Boone Hospital, said she doesn’t see the ban as an infringement on workers’ rights.

"We’re not asking them not to smoke at home, not to smoke on their days off," she said. "We’re asking them to make it through the workday without smoking on the medical campus."

Laura Schopp, wellness coordinator for MU Health, said thankful e-mails were pouring into her office.

"The overwhelming response to our new policy has been very favorable," she said. "It’s just the right thing to do for our patients."

One of the more controversial aspects of the new MU Health rule is the restriction on "smelling like smoke." Deborah Rountree, a nurse in University Hospital’s burn unit who also smokes, said, "What, are they going to be policing Highway 63 now? Can I not have a cigarette on the way to work?"

But Schopp defended the measure.

"We have people with respiratory illnesses in here and people in the hospital who are trying to quit themselves, and for some people, the smell of smoke is a trigger for cravings," she said. "We think it’s good patient care to be smoke free, just as we encourage employees to wear scented-free products."

Although most smokers interviewed for this story balked at the ban, most also expressed a desire to kick their habits, including Dorthy Eberhart, a secretary at University Hospital.

Eberhart, 50, has smoked since she was 14 and has tried to quit several times.

"I always thought I would quit when I turned 40," she said. "Here I am at another milestone, and I’m still smoking. Maybe this will help me quit and stick with it."

Several hospitals throughout the state have already adopted similar bans, including Capitol Region Medical Center and St. Marys Health Center in Jefferson City.