Turning away tobacco

Three Lancaster County hospitals are telling smokers to butt out.

Ephrata Community Hospital, Heart of Lancaster Regional Medical Center and Lancaster General health system have agreed to become tobacco-free. Heart of Lancaster plans to enact its policy Aug. 1, while the other hospitals chose an effective date of Jan. 1, 2008.

The move means that virtually all hospitals in the midstate are or plan to be tobacco-free. Four hospitals in York County decided early last year to go tobacco-free, and several hospitals and insurers in the Harrisburg area followed suit.

The Tobacco Free Coalition of Lancaster County approached the county's hospitals last year about banning smoking and other tobacco products. The coalition gave the hospitals sample tobacco policies and information about how they could implement such policies, said Myka Diller, eastern division program director with the Lancaster office of the American Lung Association of the Mid-Atlantic. The Lung Association also is offering smoking-cessation programs to help employees, patients and hospital visitors adapt to the new rules.

- Christina Olenchek