How and when did people stop smoking in American hospitals? Was there a national ban?
Lots went smoke-free before then.
My mother was hospitalized for a bit over a month in 1981, the hospital she was in did not allow smoking inside the building. She could not go outside to smoke and this drove her crazy. She went through a lot of suckers and gum that month.
Most these days do not even allow it outside on their property.
I remember an attending pulmonologist smoking at the nursing station in between seeing patients, back when I was an intern in 1983. He’d take a plastic medicine cup, fill it with water, and use it as his ashtray.
The hospital I work at prohibits smoking indoors and on its property outdoors (the outdoor ban isn’t enforced very well if at all). Surprisingly (or not), Veterans Administration hospitals reportedly still maintain lots of outdoor “smoking shelters” and even a number of indoor smoking areas.
A bill was introduced in Congress last year to stop this but apparently it went nowhere.
Some history of the V.A.'s smoking-friendly policies.
*One lasting memory from med school days is looking for a V.A. hospital patient who I needed to do a workup on, and finding him in a lounge dense with cigarette smoke. Couldn’t have been very good for his coronary arteries.
The other government buildings must have had a similar ruling around that time. I took over the management of a NASA facility about 1994 and one of the first things I had to do was enforce the indoor ban. The previous manager had been looking the other way. It didn’t go well, most of the technical crew were smokers and one was the union rep. But even the union agreed.
Dennis
I had a heart attack in 1965 and the hospital I was in for two weeks did not allow smoking in the rooms. So I had two weeks of cold turkey and never smoked again. I don’t know what the rules were outside patient rooms, but this hospital was smoke free in rooms 53 years ago.
My uncle was a surgeon in the Navy and once described to me an elaborate rig he had made up that allowed him to smoke during operations :eek: This was at Da Nang during the Vietnam War. He also told me that when he was in private practice he had two different offices side by side–one for smokers, one for non-smokers.
I know that he also told me that during long (12-hour) operations there would come a point when the other doctors could take over for a bit and he would go out for a smoke break in the hall. I don’t remember if this was at a military/VA facility or when he was in private practice.
Just a bit of evidence from popular culture.
In Jaws - 1975 - there’s a scene in the hospital where people are smoking in the local hospital after Brodie’s son has his non-fatal encounter with Bruce.
So our time-frame in 1975-1993?
Anecdote–I had my first baby in a hospital in '76, I was in a six person ward and I was the only non-smoker and the only one breastfeeding. It was not a fun experience.
In Steel Magnolias, Ouiser is smoking in the hospital while Shelby is getting her kidney transplant. That movie came out in 1989, set in Louisiana.
In the late 80s my grandfather (who was then pushing 90) was allowed to smoke his pipe in his hospital room even though it was technically not allowed. The staff realized that he would be much more cooperative (and happy) if he were allowed to smoke. Obviously no oxygen was involved in his treatment.
Rooms were definitely smoke-free before entire hospitals were - I don’t ever remember seeing anyone smoke in a hospital rooms, but when my son was born in 1990 there was still a smoking lounge on the maternity floor.
In the documentary Titicut Follies, which was filmed at Bridgewater State Hospital in 1967, a doctor is seen inserting an NG tube in a patient while leaning over him, the cigarette in his mouth sporting a long ash.
I understand the question is on hospitals, but I was flabbergasted last weekend in South Carolina when I was asked if we wanted a smoking or non-smoking table in a restaurant. I had no idea that you could still smoke in a restaurant in the United States.
Me too, but I recently had the same experience in Weirton, W.Va.
Apparently the initiative of “smoke free” is settled on a county by county basis in West (by gawd) Virginia.
According to this article the only states with major cities that still allow smoking in restaurants are Oklahoma and Nevada.*
The further you go into the outback, the more likely that municipalities haven’t gotten around to a smoking ban (or have one influential politician who still smokes).
*realizing that Weirton, WV is not exactly a “major city”.
I’ve been watching Ernie Kovacs’ game show, from 1960, sponsored by Dutch Masters. Each week he announces that they have sent a case of cigars to a Veteran’s Hospital. So that’s where things stood back then.
Here it was big news when Duke hospital banned smoking on all of their grounds because the Duke family made their initial fortune in tobacco. I believe they were the last local hospital to ban smoking outdoors .