Lakeside Medical Center opened in October 2009 as a tobacco-free campus. Now, Palm Beach County’s only public hospital has increased its commitment to help employees, patients and community members quit tobacco use.
As part of that commitment, Lakeside Medical Center, with the support of the Lake Okeechobee Rural Health Network (LORHN) and the Everglades Area Health Education Center, recently received a grant from the Florida Department of Health to aid smoking cessation efforts. The grant totals approximately $236,000 per year for the next three years.
The funding allows Lakeside Medical Center to currently offer a comprehensive tobacco-cessation program that includes free six-week smoking cessation classes in English and Spanish, counseling, staff who specialize in implementing the program and the resources necessary to help promote the programs throughout the community. Grant funds were made available as a result of a settlement between the state of Florida and the tobacco industry in the 1990s.
