Smoking Ban Ordered for All L.A. County Medical Facilities

Forget cigarettes if you’re headed for a hospital or health clinic in Los Angeles County.

A ban on smoking at all county medical facilities was ordered Tuesday by the Board of Supervisors. The new policy is to be phased in at all six county hospitals and 47 clinics by Jan. 1.

Patients, physicians, visitors and about 20,000 employees will be required to observe the smoking ban, Director of Health Services Robert Gates said.

The new policy extends an experiment begun last year at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, a large county-run hospital in Torrance. Smoking was eliminated there with only a minimum of grumbling from patients and employees, Gates said.

Gates already prohibited smoking this summer at the county’s Department of Health Services headquarters downtown.

“I haven’t run into a single person yet who doesn’t agree they should stop smoking,” Gates said.

Under the plan approved Tuesday, smoking is allowed only in areas outside the hospitals and offices, including balconies. Patients whose physicians recommend that they be permitted to smoke may be exempted, Gates said.

Disciplinary action will be considered for serious violators, and special classes to help employees quit smoking will be scheduled at the hospitals, he said.

The ban was passed on a voice vote, after brief comments, at the urging of Supervisor Kenneth Hahn.

“It is absolutely idiotic to be having a surgery for lung cancer (in a county hospital) and have the doctors and nurses smoking out in the halls,” Hahn said.

The city of Los Angeles passed a law in 1984 that limited smoking in hospitals and most other public places within the city. In addition, some hospitals have put stricter rules in effect.

One of those, UCLA Medical Center in Westwood, prohibited all smoking last January except in two employee lounges, spokesman Richard Elbaum said.

More typical, however, is the arrangement at the nine Kaiser Permanente medical centers in Southern California. Spokesman Douglas Jones said that smoking is prohibited in public areas and rest rooms and that no-smoking areas must be provided in cafeterias and offices.