Tobacco-Free Hospitals, Clinics & Workplace
At Ballad Health, we promote wellness and healthy living for you, your family, our team members and our communities.
As part of this commitment, all our locations are entirely smoke and tobacco free.
To protect you and others from the harmful effects of tobacco, nicotine and secondhand smoke, we do not allow smoking or the use of smokeless tobacco products or e-cigarettes (electronic nicotine-delivery devices) in any of our hospitals, clinics or other facilities – either inside or outside the buildings.
Ballad Health encourages our team members to be nicotine free
As a part of the hiring process, Ballad Health will test newly hired individuals for the presence of nicotine products in their system. However, the presence of nicotine will not exclude any candidate from employment eligibility. Those who test positive for nicotine will be offered free access to resources for nicotine cessation post-employment.
Ballad Health team member support
Ballad Health assists current team members by providing free nicotine cessation resources. We can also help them succeed through our employee assistance program, which offers additional nicotine cessation support.
Why nicotine free?
Ballad Health is committed to promoting healthy living and providing high-quality patient care. This commitment isn’t just to our patients. It’s to our team as well. And if we can support and encourage team members to quit using tobacco or nicotine products, our community will be that much healthier, and we’ll all be better off for it. Not only that, but we have a responsibility as a health care provider to model the healthy behaviors we promote and work to foster in our region.
Dangers of secondhand exposure
While we’re committed to modeling and fostering healthy, tobacco-free lifestyles, we ultimately restrict the use of tobacco and nicotine products due to the health risks they pose to our patients, visitors and team members.
Many people are severely allergic to cigarette smoke. For some, it can trigger a reaction serious enough to send them to the ER, especially if a self-administered dose of epinephrine (like an EpiPen) isn’t on-hand.
And there are numerous other conditions that studies have linked to secondhand smoke, including:
- Acute and chronic bronchitis
- Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD)
- Lung cancer
- Cardiovascular disease and heart attacks
- And more
Kicking the habit – why it’s important
In addition to the dangers of secondhand smoke, the health effects of smoking have long been known.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that smoking increases the risk for coronary heart disease and stroke – two of the leading causes of death – by two to four times.
The chances of developing lung cancer are at least 25 times higher for smokers. And smokers are 12 to 13 times more likely to die from COPD than nonsmokers.
Smokeless doesn’t mean harmless!
Smokeless tobacco actually delivers about the same amount of nicotine as other tobacco products and contains at least 30 chemicals known to cause cancer, according to the American Cancer Society.
In fact, smokeless tobacco has been linked to cancers of the mouth, tongue, cheek, gums, esophagus and pancreas. It also contributes to an increased risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, heart attack and stroke.
Need help getting tobacco-free?
Community support
We want to help our community members live healthier, and quitting tobacco use is a key part of that. That’s why Ballad offers tobacco and smoking cessation classes to the general public.
For details or to register, please call 833-8-BALLAD.