Hospital staff must be nicotine free

A US hospital has said that from next year it will no longer hire anyone who uses nicotine in any form, a prohibition that includes electronic cigarettes, nicotine patches and nicotine gum, according to a story by Jon Kelvey for the Carroll County Times.

The Carroll Hospital Center campus at Westminster, Maryland, has been a no-smoking zone since 1998, but on Thursday it extended its ban to nicotine products, apparently claiming that such products were as hazardous as smoking was.

Beginning January 1, applicants for positions with the Carroll Hospital Center will be tested for nicotine along with the usual pre-employment drug screening, according to Leslie Simmons, president and CEO of the center.

Those who failed would be offered a free 90-day supply of smoking cessation products: their choice of nicotine patches, gums or other products, he added.

“It is $750, for a 90-day supply, and we would provide that for free,” Simmons said. “We would encourage them to reapply and retest in 90 days. We are not trying to make this punitive; we are really trying to help people.”

It was not clear from the story whether products with niacin would be included in the list of banned substances.