CDHB Supports World Smokefree Day

Media Release

DATE: 28 May 2009
SUBJECT: CDHB Supports World Smokefree Day

The Canterbury District Health Board (CDHB) is supporting World Smokefree Day by holding two events tomorrow that will encourage the public to quit smoking.

Staff from the CDHB’s Community Public Health division, along with other members of Smokefree Canterbury, will host events at Christchurch Hospital and in Cathedral Square on Friday 29 May, ahead of World Smokefree Day (WFSD) on Sunday.

Smokechange – an organisation that supports pregnant women and their partners to quit smoking – will also hold an event at Christchurch Women’s Hospital.

In recognition of the World Smokefree Day theme, which is ‘give quitting a go – you can do it! (me mutu – kia kaha!), staff at each of the venues will be giving advice to people on how to quit smoking and the services and therapies available to help them do so.

In Cathedral Square, health promotion staff, in conjunction with the ZM Black Thunders, will be asking people who smoke to exchange their cigarettes for packs, containing information about quit smoking services and nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) gum.

People visiting Cathedral Square will be able to talk to Community Respiratory Physician Dr Roland Meyer about the benefits of using gum when they are trying to quit smoking. Research shows that people who use NRT when they are trying to quit smoking are twice as likely to succeed.

Community and Public Health General Manager Evon Currie said smoking remained the single biggest cause of preventable death in New Zealand. “By supporting an event such as World Smokefree Day we are asking people to think about qiving quitting a go, which will not only benefit their health but the health of their family/whanau.”

ENDS

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