JPS Health Network expands smoke-free policy

No one can smoke or use any kind of tobacco products on or near any JPS Health Network buildings starting Jan. 1, under a stringent new policy that also requires employees to clock out if they leave campus to smoke.

Smoke-free buildings have been the norm at JPS Health Network for more than a decade, but the new policy makes the Tarrant County public hospital system 100 percent tobacco free. That means no real or electronic cigarettes, pipes, cigars, chewing tobacco or snuff anywhere, including parking garages and lots, green spaces, vehicles, decks, stairwells and outside areas near building entrances

“Everyone who steps foot on JPS property, whether it is owned by the hospital district or leased, will have to comply with our tobacco-free environment policy, which means no use of tobacco products of any kind or any device that mimics the use of tobacco,” said J.R. Labbe, the hospital system’s vice president of communications and community affairs.

The new rules cover the main county hospital and JPS’s 44 specialty and primary care facilities.

The policy applies to visitors, patients, employees, contractors and vendors at JPS. Visitors who refuse to comply will be asked to leave.

E-cigarettes are banned because they contain chemicals that aren’t a healthy lifestyle choice, said Nicole Shoquist, director of outpatient pharmacy for JPS Health Network.

“At JPS, we chose not to allow any mimic of tobacco use,” she said.

No smelling like tobacco

Tough policies are already the norm at hospitals across North Texas, Labbe said. For example, all Texas Health Resources campuses are smoke-free. Labbe said some hospitals don’t hire people who use tobacco, screening them out during the application process.

“We are not at that point here at JPS, but our policy is you cannot use tobacco while at work,” Labbe said.

JPS employees can’t use tobacco products during work hours or paid breaks. Employees who leave campus to use tobacco during work hours have to clock out. Employees who repeatedly violate the rules could lose their jobs, Labbe said.

“You cannot come to work or return from a break smelling like you have used a tobacco product,” she said. “There will be some counseling in your future if you do something like that.”

However, she said: “I want to be clear, we are not telling employees that they cannot use tobacco. We are telling them they cannot use it at JPS.”

Labbe said about four percent of 6,000 JPS employees may be tobacco users.

The hospital will stand firm, even if complaints surface about smokers’ rights.

“A right to smoke, I don’t know that that is embedded in the Constitution anywhere,” Labbe said. “We certainly have a right to be able to dictate what happens on our property.”

‘Let’s Quit Together’

As the Thursday deadline approached, outside ashtrays were being removed.

JPS has been offering tobacco cessation classes to employees and providing free nicotine replacement products, such as gum and patches. As of Wednesday, more than 70 JPS employees had received nicotine replacement products through the organization’s outpatient pharmacies, Shoquist said.

“I anticipate that that will dramatically increase starting Jan. 1,” she said.

Emerson Shope, 40, learned about the new policy while waiting outside for a family member visiting the hospital Wednesday. He was disappointed, but said he will stand somewhere else when he smokes in the future.

“It is what it is,” Shope said as he smoked. “It’s their house and their rules.”

The Tarrant County Hospital District Board of Managers approved the new policy in April. JPS has been getting the word out since September, posting the new rules on new digital message boards throughout the main JPS Hospital at 1500 S. Main St. in Fort Worth. Plans are underway to add digital messaging at other JPS facilities, Labbe said.

Computer screen savers also remind employees and visitors of the change and the word has gone out on Twitter and Facebook.

Handouts, titled “Let’s Quit Together,” inform employees and visitors of the changes and how to get help quitting, Labbe said. The information for patients is available in Spanish and Vietnamese.

This story was originally published December 31, 2014 at 4:21 PM with the headline "JPS Health Network expands smoke-free policy."