A community health advocate and Charleston resident said Wednesday he is disappointed in Charleston Area Medical Center for not doing more to support a measure he says could bring down the state's high smoking rates.
Perry Bryant, former director of West Virginians for Affordable Health Care, came to CAMC's board last month to ask for its support of an increase of at least $1 per pack in the state's tobacco tax -- a measure approved by the state Senate on Tuesday. The CAMC board took no action on the matter last month, and referred it to the Kanawha Coalition for Community Health Improvement, of which the hospital is a member.
After CAMC's latest board meeting Wednesday, Bryant said he was disappointed that the board itself had not taken action to support the tax increase.
"Once a decade you have the opportunity to really drive down tobacco utilization, and we ought to aggressively pursue that and not just pass it off to the committees and others," Bryant said.
West Virginia's smoking rate is the highest in the nation: 26.7 percent of state residents smoke, according to 2014 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System data. The state's smoking rate has not declined significantly over the past two decades, despite a marked decline in surrounding states and across the nation.
Bryant said he asked CAMC because it's the state's largest hospital system and one of the largest employers in Kanawha County. The county is home to House Speaker Tim Armstead and House Finance Chairman Eric Nelson, he noted.
"Consistently, CAMC seems to do a great job of taking people of the river and treating them and making them well," Bryant said. "What they don't do is go upstream to see why there's so many people in the stream to begin with."
Dave Ramsey, CAMC CEO, said he respectfully disagrees with Bryant's assessment. He pointed to the hospital's "population health initiatives" as well as outreach on trauma and safety.
"Smoking is a issue that it's not just the hospital's responsibility, it's the community's responsibility as a whole," Ramsey said. "We're a part of that community we're working with the Kanawha Coalition for Community health Improvement and we've been working with them on community health issues for more than 20 years, so we're very much involved in the upriver sorts of wellness activity and population health."
Ramsey said Bryant is focused on one issue while the hospital is focused on several issues that affect health in Appalachia as a whole.
"We're worried about a much larger continuum of issues that goes for all the issues in the Appalachian mountain region -- diabetes high blood pressure, cardio vascular disease, cancer, and we're involved in trying to keep people healthy in all of those areas."
The West Virginia state Senate on Tuesday passed a bill that would increase the cigarette tax by $1 a pack. The House of Delegates would have to pass the measure in order for it to become a law.
Judy Crabtree, executive director of the Kanawha Coalition, said Wednesday that several member agencies -- including CAMC -- generally support the $1-per-pack increase, though some declined to take a side on a political issue. Bryant has also requested support for a three-month campaign to decrease the smoking rate which would include patients who smoke being counseling to stop by their primary care providers, access to smoking cessation programs and FDA-approved smoking cessation products, among other things. Bryant has also asked the hospital to suspend its own marketing campaign in favor of a three-month media campaign with an anti-smoking theme.
Crabtree said some agencies said they would consider contributing to a media campaign, but not to suspend their own marketing campaigns during that time.
She said she would talk with Bryant to determine what actions, if any, the coalition needs to take next.
Reach Lori Kersey at lori.kersey@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-1240 or follow @LoriKerseyWV on Twitter.