Ban on Smoking Imposed at UCLA Medical Center

Smoking will be banned at the UCLA Medical Center hospital and clinics after the first of the year in what hospital industry representatives call one of the most stringent anti-smoking policies in the business.

Patients, employees and visitors will be allowed to smoke only on outdoor patios, Mark Laret, an assistant director at the 700-bed medical center in Westwood, said Monday. He added that although the policy does not apply to other medical center facilities, including a neuropsychiatric hospital and medical schools, “the trend throughout the medical center is toward no smoking.”

“We’ve thought about this a long time,” Laret said, pointing out that nearly a year of discussions and preparation went into instituting the policy. He added that in light of the smoking ordinance enacted earlier this year by the Los Angeles City Council and of strong anti-smoking stances taken by various medical journals and associations, “we felt the time was right for us to take this step . . .. We’re doing it for the health, safety and comfort of patients, visitors and employees.”

Arthur Sponseller, a spokesman for the Hospital Council of Southern California, which represents about 240 hospitals, said that hospitals have historically controlled smoking in their facilities by designating special smoking areas. This has made compliance with the city’s smoking ordinance, which allows smoking in only designated areas, a relatively easy adjustment, he said.

“UCLA Medical Center certainly appears to be at the leading edge of the trend (toward controlled smoking),” Sponseller said, adding, however, that he expects that other medical institutions “will be looking at how it works before they get on the bandwagon.”

Other Bans Cited

Sponseller said that he knows of no other hospitals that have taken such stringent measures. One notable exception are Seventh-day Adventist medical institutions, such as the Glendale Adventist Medical Center in Glendale, which because of religious as well as medical reasons, ban smoking at their facilities.

About three years ago, when Stanford University Hospital in Northern California instituted a policy allowing smoking in only a few designated areas, it was “the strictest” policy of any major medical institution in the country, said Jeanne Kennedy, director of community and patient relations at the hospital.

Kennedy conceded that the new UCLA Medical Center policy now “puts them in the forefront.”

Laret of the UCLA Medical Center said that smokers will be allowed a six-month adaptation period. The center will offer employees who want to quit smoking an opportunity to join a program to do so and will underwrite most of the cost. As a temporary measure, the center will also set aside two designated smoking areas for employees, but will no longer allow smoking at currently designated areas at nursing stations, lounges and in the cafeteria.