By Donna Lamb

At its most recent meeting, the City Council unanimously passed a bill prohibiting smoking on a hospital's grounds as well as within 15 feet of an entrance or exit to the grounds or to the hospital building. This legislation will apply not only to general hospitals but to diagnostic and treatment centers and residential health care facilities.

"When people are on their way to treatments, appointments, visits or other business at a New York City hospital, they must not be forced to walk through a cloud of smoke to get into the building," stated the bill’s prime sponsor, Majority Whip Inez Dickens (above). "This ban is a common-sense measure that will prevent bad habits from having a negative impact on those who are entering a hospital to improve their own health and well-being."

As she asked her colleagues to support her bill, Dickens made her point vividly, declaring, "You wouldn’t hold an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in the back room of a bar. In the same way, people on their way to a smoking cessation program or any other medical appointment deserve to be in a smoke-free environment, not a place where they are forced to breathe toxic second hand smoke."

Dickens’ bill enjoyed strong support, including from Speaker Christine Quinn (left) who agreed that patients should not have their health jeopardized by being made to walk through plumes of cigarette smoke on their way to seeing their doctor. Keeping the areas around the city's health care facilities smoke-free is a common-sense way to improve air quality and help New Yorkers maintain their health.

Council Member Dr. Mathieu Eugene (right), a member of the City Council Committee on Health, said he voted for the measure because he saw it as the logical and necessary extension of the City’s existing ban on smoking inside hospitals. It has been in place since 1988 and includes hospitals, clinics, psychiatric facilities, residential health care and physical therapy facilities, convalescent homes and homes for the aged. He noted that the states of Arkansas, Colorado and Hawaii as well as the municipalities of Buffalo, New York, Duluth, Minnesota and Sioux City, Iowa have already passed measures restricting smoking around hospital entrances, and it’s about time that New York City follow suit.