Ministry of Health - Tobacco Target Update: Primary Care - 9 September 2011
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posted by Danielle Crooks on 9 September 2011
The seventh update from the Ministry of Health on the primary care tobacco health target
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by Carl Billington
from Capital & Coast
Member since 27 Jul 2010
7 posts • Report
Relevant links:
by Carl Billington
from Capital & Coast
Member since 27 Jul 2010
7 posts • Report
Thanks for taking the time to post a comment - we appreciate the feedback. In acknowledging the issues raised here, we invited Dr Hayden McRobbie, a consultant to the Ministry, to share his thoughts:
"It is good to see that General Practitioners are taking the time to read and comment on current initiatives aimed at provide better help for smokers to quit. I think that it is fair to say that we are all trying to find the best way to screen for tobacco use and offer support to those who smoke.
Brief advice to quit smoking from a doctor remains one of the most important smoking cessation interventions and can be delivered quickly to all people who smoke. Data show that most people want to quit, but few know how to best go about this.
Dr Wilcox is right – people don’t need repetitive patronising sermons. Instead frontline healthcare professionals are better to offer a supportive approach and recommend the best ways to quit. In fact recent data show that making an offer of treatment, regardless of people intention to quit, seems to be one of the most important factors in prompting people making a quit attempt (West 2011).
Dr Wilcox is also correct in pointing out that most people do gain some weight when quitting smoking and this is an important issue to address. However the risks of smoking, even 5 cigarettes a day, are significant. Many people have reduced their cigarette consumption, but this does not necessarily translate to a reduction in toxin exposure because of compensatory smoking. There is no safe level of smoking.
Although we have made great gains in reducing smoking prevalence New Zealand still has a way to go. Changing behaviours such as smoking, drinking alcohol, eating, and physical activity can be difficult. However healthcare professionals should not underestimate the effect they have on their patients’ behaviour."
Reference:
West, R. (2011). Using theory to design better tobacco control interventions. Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco, European Meeting 8-11 September 2011. Antalya, Turkey, SRNT.
by jonwilcox
from Waitemata
Member since 9 Jul 2011
22 posts • Report
I have been a GP for 30 years
We simply HAVE to stop this obsession with intrusively attempting to cease all traces of cigarette consumption in the community.
For an individual there is a time and place for doing so (stopping completely) and it is rarely at the time when we are being visited for another problem. People dont need repetitive patronising sermons. A substantial if not very large number of patients also gain substantial weight after stopping smoking and weight gain is by far more damaging to their cardiovascular and diabetogenic health than smoking 5 cigarettes a day. Indeed we can map their increasing insulin resistance and rising Hba1C levels to support this form of 'health sector induced pathology'.
People will 'stop' when they are in the right frame of mind. We rarely see serious smokers these days in any case and at least people are honest enough to tell us how many they smoke.
There are more important things to concentrate on in our health service such as the secondary sector bureaucracy and wastage and the associated and appallingly substandard access to our secondary care services for patients who could otherwise be working. The longer a patient is not working the less likely it is that they will resume. ACC knows this and most of us know this.
Perhaps our health administrators cannot see the woods for the trees - or should that be 'for the cigarillos'.