Mercy Medical Center to go smoke-free

Joining a trend that includes many health care facilities on Long Island and throughout New York state, Mercy Medical Center will have a smoke-free campus starting on May 1.

Smoking has long been prohibited in all of Mercy’s buildings, and the new policy extends the ban to the entire hospital grounds, including parking lots.

Other than psychiatric patients, who will be able to smoke under controlled circumstances, no patients, visitors, physicians or staff will be permitted to smoke anywhere on the Mercy campus.

All previously-designated outdoor smoking locations will be eliminated, and neither employees nor patients accompanied by hospital-staff or family-member escorts will be able to go outside to smoke.

To ease the transition, the hospital has been offering smoking-cessation groups for employees, and to assist patients who are smokers, medical staff members may prescribe a medication that will ease their desire for nicotine during their hospital stay. And it is hoped that some patients will be able to use the opportunity to begin a healthier, smoke-free life.