The testing (and the policy that requires it) does nothing to make the hospital hire the best person to work for it while at the same time invading the privacy of potential workers.

Hospitals, like any other place of employment, have to hire the people who are best equipped to do their jobs. What if it hypothetically comes down to a candidate who’s less qualified but a nonsmoker and a candidate who smokes but is a great worker? Hiring the less qualified individual because of his or her lifestyle is not only backward, but it also hurts the people in the hospital who have to endure a lower quality of care.

The policy also invades prospective employees’ privacy by going beyond what knowledge is necessary to hire someone. It’s understandable for an employer to want to know if prospective employees are engaged in illegal activities, so a drug test is reasonable.

It also is understandable for an employer to want to know if prospective employees have a criminal background, so a background check is reasonable.

Smoking is not a criminal activity and won’t show up on a background check. So why the test? Why this level of detail in the hiring process?

Could there be another, more logical reason for this policy?

Hospitals, like everyone else in this state, need to save money. Smoking can lead to a higher risk for a host of illnesses, including strokes, heart disease and cancer, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These are illnesses hospitals have to help their employees pay for, making people who aren’t at a higher risk of those diseases (nonsmokers) cheaper than smokers for the hospital.

But there are other options besides restricting prospective employees if hospitals wish to save on health care.

Some employers charge workers who smoke higher insurance premiums, essentially making smokers pay for the extra health care they probably will need in the future. Other employers offer incentives for employees who join programs to help them stop smoking.

Neither of these options invade the privacy of workers or prevent the best workers from being hired. They let employees make their own decision as to which is more important: the health of their body or of their wallets.

With the continuing discussion of the future of health care in this country, it’s become widely accepted that medicine is, in fact, a business first. Hospitals, like any business, are going to try to keep their costs low to function. This policy will keep costs low, but if the hospital chooses to hire candidates based on potential health care costs, that could hurt patients.

If Sparrow’s aim is to save money on health care costs, it should just say so.