Many believe that the anti-smoking wave sweeping across the country often veers toward a dictatorial bent, but that’s not the case when it comes to hospitals enacting bans on tobacco use. Haywood Regional Medical Center’s decision a couple of weeks ago to prohibit all smoking on its campus is welcome news, as much for its symbolic value as its actual contribution to good health.

HRMC will officially become smoke-free in May 2006. In the coming year the health care facility will offer workers help in kicking the habit through cessation classes and whatever other means prove effective. The 12-month span is a lengthy grace period that should provide even the most-addicted smokers the opportunity to, if not quit, get enough control over their habit that they can retain their jobs. By letting a year lapse, HRMC is giving employees and visitors plenty of time to adjust.

Those who can’t kick the habit after a year, though, will have to use one of their allotted breaks to go off campus and partake. That, again, is reasonable, in that employers should not have to pay for smoke breaks.

When Angel Medical Center in Franklin decided last November to go smoke-free, we praised its efforts. At that time we wrote: “As more and more places go smoke-free, health-care facilities should be leading the way. The symbolism here is as important as the actual ban. The doctors and therapists and office staff at every hospital in this country see the frightening toll tobacco takes on people’s lives. A ban is the hospital’s way of saying that smoking is bad for you, period.”

As with other hospitals, a primary area of concern was for patients and their families. When someone who is addicted is admitted to the hospital, telling that person they can’t smoke presents a whole range of problems. For many who are dealing with the stress of being ill, the urge to smoke is exacerbated, so a ban must be backed by good training for employees and a host of options for the addicted.

Now, it’s more than likely only a matter of time before WestCare takes similar steps at its Sylva and Bryson City campuses. As it is, the WestCare hospitals are now out there all alone in allowing limited tobacco use.

HRMC President David Rice said the writing was on the wall. Other hospital administrators were beginning to worry that health-care workers in the region who smoked would quit and take jobs at HRMC or WestCare. That did not happen, said Rice, but the hospital did indeed recognize its position as one of the two in the region yet to enact an outright ban on smoking.

HRMC will, of course, take some criticism for its decision. That criticism, however, is misdirected. At some point in the not-too-distant future, every health-care facility in this country will be smoke-free. It just makes sense.