Health Ministry maintains intense focus on smoking

Nov 24, 2013 News

---

 

 

By Sharmain Grainger

Smoking to many is merely a lifestyle, but to those within the health sectors of the world battling to

combat the startling impact of chronic non-communicable diseases, commonly referred to as NCDs, smoking is nothing more than a threat to a population’s health.

Moreover, in its continued effort to address the challenge of NCDs, the Ministry of Health is strategically directing much attention to four risk factors.

These factors, according to Chief Medical Officer, Dr Shamdeo Persaud, include: unhealthy diets, physical inactivity, the harmful use of alcohol, and of course, tobacco smoking.

While it is crucial that all of the factors that can lend to NCDs be closely addressed, Dr Persaud speaking at a forum at the Georgetown Public Hospital on Thursday said that smoking, for instance, is a rather major challenge.

“It might appear that there are not many (people) smoking, but when you look at the statistics a little bit more carefully, you will find that in Georgetown the rate is about 16 per cent of all adult males and maybe about four per cent of all adult women,” Dr Persaud said.

He noted that the state of affairs in rural communities reflects an even higher percentage of persons indulging in smoking activities. The CMO speculated that at least 47 per cent of men in rural areas are smokers, while close to 17 per cent of the female population have adopted this habit too.

“If you go further afield into our mining areas up to 70 per cent of men in Region Eight smoke, where lots of our miners are, and about 48 per cent of women in Region Seven are smoking. Don’t believe that because we are just walking around and we are not seeing a lot of people smoking, and we are not smelling a lot of smoke, that it is not happening. It’s happening and it impacts on what we are trying to address here,” Dr Persaud asserted.

He said that it is for this reason there is need for urgent measures to be put in place to better control the existing rate of smoking.

He speculated that the habit of smoking is oftentimes one linked to the strategic marketing of the product and even because of some persons’ desire to “fit in.”

“The marketing in the tobacco industry…is probably one of the most powerful lobbying industries in the world, so every time we come out with a message or a pronouncement on the harmful effects of tobacco smoking, there is always a counter attack.”

However, the CMO noted that those within the health sectors of the world, Guyana being no exception, have recognised that there are some important measures that must be put in place swiftly.

Guyana, according to him, is a signatory to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control which, he insists, is almost like a law, in terms of dealing with tobacco smoking.  This requires that countries put measures in place to curb the potentially deadly practice of smoking which can not only affect the smokers, but non-smokers as well, due to their inhalation of tobacco smoke in the environment.

Nevertheless, Dr. Persaud said that there is need for legislation to be put in place to ensure that there are smoke-free spaces, even as efforts are made to reduce the number of youths who are indoctrinated into the habit.

According to him, research shows that the younger persons when they indulge in the habit of smoking are more likely to become addicted to the substance.  Moreover, they are more likely to develop at least one chronic NCD. Non-Communicable diseases include: heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes and even arthritis.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) says that among young people, the short-term health consequences of smoking also include respiratory and non-respiratory effects, addiction to nicotine, and the associated risk of other drug use. WHO has noted, too, that the long-term health consequences of youth smoking are reinforced by the fact that most young people who smoke regularly continue to smoke throughout adulthood.

Moreover, cigarette smokers have a lower level of lung function than those persons who have never smoked, since smoking reduces the rate of lung growth, according to WHO, which has deduced that smoking at an early age increases the risk of lung cancer.

For most smoking-related cancers, the risk increases as the individual continues to smoke and WHO has outlined that teenage smokers suffer from shortness of breath almost three times as often as teens who don’t smoke, and produce phlegm more than twice as often as teens who don’t smoke.

“Teenage smokers are more likely to have seen a doctor or other health professionals for an emotional or psychological complaint,” the WHO explains. WHO also states that teenagers who smoke are three times more likely than non-smokers to use alcohol, eight times more likely to use marijuana, and 22 times more likely to use cocaine, even as it points out that smoking is associated with a host of other risky behaviours, such as fighting and engaging in unprotected sex.

The Ministry of Health in its efforts over the years to combat the expansive impact of tobacco smoking has solicited the support of a number of Government agencies, including the Ministry of Education, to commit to becoming ‘No Smoking Zones’.

 

 

 

---

---