The Augusta Medical Center is aiming to make its campus community a much healthier one.

AMC announced Monday it will become a "Tobacco-Free Campus" in August of 2009. Officials say they're hoping a year's time is enough to quit smoking.

Dana Breeding, an RN Health Educator and a Certified Tobacco Treatment Specialist, says, "There is a monetary amount that AMC will assist the employees in relation to medication in relation to nicotine replacement therapy. They will also go through a behavior modification class."

If people are concerned about patients smoking, Breeding says signs and pamphlets will soon be all over the place.

She says, "We have nicotine replacement available for our visitors on the floors, as well as we may have a pager/beeper system that we can give them in case they do need to leave the campus."

Breeding says the hospital also offers a program called GIFT, which stands for "Gain Independence From Tobacco", to everyone on campus.

"Different hospitals look at enforcement through security officers, et cetera. We're going to make sure our front line people, every single employee, it's up to them, to make sure that it does," says Breeding. "It's not an anti-smoker, it's not an anti-tobacco user initiative whatsoever. We welcome people, we want to take care of them while they're here, but what we're not welcoming is the tobacco use."

Classes for the GIFT program start September 22. Breeding says quitting smoking is a much healthier step in the right direction, not only for the individual but also those nearby.

Western State Hospital went through a similar policy on campus last October.

John Beghtol with the hospital says it wasn't as bad as they thought it was going to be. In the same manner AMC has planned, Western State offered counseling programs, workshops, and other assistance to patients and staff. Beghtol says even though 75 percent of the mentally ill population smoke, complaints were low once the ban took effect.