Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre is making a push to convince visitors and staff to quit smoking for good.
To kick off National Non-Smoking Week, staff has draped black covers over 70 chairs in the hospital cafeteria, each adorned with a different known carcinogen found in tobacco products.
Kelly-Jo Gillis, the hospital’s manager of preventative health services, said awareness is key for people to start the quitting process.
“It’s just a little bit of education to let people know, those that are smoking, but also we don’t want people to be inhaling second-hand smoke on our grounds,” Gillis said on Monday.
She added they facility plans to step up enforcement of its no-smoking policy on hospital grounds, and plan to ask staff who are out and about and come across people smoking to politely ask them to butt out.
Gillis said quitting isn’t easy, but with smoking rates in Northwestern Ontario higher than the provincial average and the associated health risks killing people every day, convincing people to give up the habit is beneficial to not only themselves, but the health-care system itself.
“We’re really promoting a clean, healthy environment for our patients, visitors and staff to be able to come to work or to come and have their treatments. We believe in what we’re doing and hope that it’s making a difference.”
Naomi McNeill, senior co-ordinator for the Thunder Bay District Health Unit’s smoker’s helpline, said it’s just a matter of giving smokers a push.
“I think the majority of smokers want to quit. They just need a little bit of support. We know that it takes people numerous times to quit before they remain smoke-free. There’s lots of support out there to help people do that,” McNeill said.
The Health Unit is once again taking part in the Canadian Cancer Society’s Driven to Quit campaign, encouraging smokers to give up the habit in March for a chance to win a new car.
“People register at www.driventoquit.ca until Feb. 28 and they make a quit attempt,” McNeil said.
Gillis added the hospital is holding its own internal quit smoking campaign, with a free iPad Mini up for grabs.
