Riddle Hospital is going smoke-free.

Does this mean emergency-room visitors will get treatment faster because staff aren't outside catching a smoke? I doubt it.

Money Q:

“As a health care provider, our role in the community is to promote health,” Dennis Burt, Riddle’s environmental management/safety administrator, said. “We see this as a positive opportunity. It’s an opportunity for us to reach out to our community and to our staff. We’re not saying that smokers are bad people.”

What a relief!

"He stressed that the policy was not an indictment or a value judgement against smokers."

Nope, wouldn't want to jumped to any "value judgements" that would be intolerant.

“We are not telling people that they have to quit smoking,” Burt said.

Just that if they do it on hospital property and get caught they will be written up, disciplined and eventually fired.

Better if he had said, "Look cigarette smoking kills people. And if we didn't discourage unhealthy behavior on our own grounds we'd be a pretty poor hospital. Not that we're that great to begin with."

And why not add in a little blather about the dangers of second-hand smoke? I don't buy it but most anti-smoking zealots do. That should have been thrown in too as a rationale. That and how the burning of cigarettes adds to global warming.