The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Coimbatore News : Tobacco Cessation Clinic opened

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jun 01, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore

Tobacco Cessation Clinic opened

By Our Staff Reporter

COIMBATORE, MAY 31. The Sri Ramakrishna Institute of Oncology and Research at the Sri Ramakrishna Hospital today opened a Tobacco Cessation Clinic to wean people from smoking and tobacco chewing.

The clinic, opened to coincide with the World No Tobacco Day today, would educate tobacco users on the health hazards posed by smoking, especially cancer and offer rehabilitative therapy to wean them from the habit.

The Director of the Institute, P. Guhan, said the clinic would function every day. He said a person's blood pressure and respiratory rate returned to normal within 24 hours of stopping use of tobacco. Besides, cardiac risk factors would also be reduced by 60 per cent to 75 per cent within two years of giving up tobacco.

The risk of lung cancer would be eliminated totally in three to five years of quitting tobacco use. Instead of mere counselling, rehabilitative methods such as "nicotine patches" (stuck on a person) and nicotine-laced chewing gums went a long way in helping people give up use of tobacco products.

The clinic was opened by the Trustee of the SNR Sons' group, R.Venkatesulu.

In a message to people on the anti-tobacco day, the Sankara Eye Centre warned that smokers were prone to eye disorders such as cataract, raised eye pressure and thyroid eye disease that could cause blindness.

Partial or complete blindness owing to retinal artery thrombosis was at least twice as frequent in smokers than in non-smokers.

The Managing Trustee of the centre, R.V. Ramani, said in a release that smokers tend to develop age-related muscular degeneration about 10 years earlier than non-smokers and this warning should be included in awareness campaigns.

In another release, the Principal of the PSG College of Nursing, Elizabeth Jean Abraham, said the day marked a global event when smokers united to break free from their dependence on tobacco.

She said public information as part of the campaign against tobacco should include efforts to increase awareness, among women also, on the hazards of smoking, raise awareness among decision-makers on the need for control of smoking and initiate action and counter the effects of inaccurate information and advertising.

Health education in schools should include awareness on ill-effects of tobacco.

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