By Kelley Weiss
Kansas City, MO – Kansas City area hospitals are moving to ban tobacco on their campuses. KCUR's Kelley Weiss reports.
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The Missouri Health Department will require all Kansas City area hospitals to be tobacco free by next fall. Hospitals banned smoking inside buildings more than a decade ago but now want to eliminate all tobacco products from campuses including designated outside smoking areas and parking lots. Dave Dillon, a spokesperson for the Missouri Hospital Association, says hospitals want to be leaders in promoting public health by banning tobacco.
Dave Dillon: "Tobacco use itself is bad for the individual using it and in the case of smoke it is also bad for those who are around it. This is the right thing to be doing for hospitals."
The soon tobacco free hospital campuses will offer educational and smoking cessation programs for employees, patients and visitors to help reduce tobacco use.
Funding for health care coverage on KCUR has been provided by the Health Care Foundation of Greater Kansas City.