The Evening Times ran an article about figures in a new report showing that women from Lanarkshire experience higher-than-average rates of stillbirth and neonatal deaths than other parts of Scotland. The region recorded the second-highest rate in Scotland with 6.42 deaths per 1,000 births. However it is worth noting that the figure of 7,096 Lanarkshire resident […]
Primary school pupil helps promote no smoking policy
A seven-year-old primary school pupil is helping NHS Lanarkshire appeal to smokers not to light up on hospital grounds.
Milly O’Hare is one of five Lanarkshire people who feature on a poster which is starting to appear on NHS Lanarkshire grounds reminding smokers that they are not permitted to smoke or use e-cigarettes on the grounds.
Milly, a pupil at All Saints Primary School in Airdrie, is the daughter of Lynne O’Hare, NHS Lanarkshire senior health improvement officer for tobacco/communications, and was happy to appear on the poster when asked by her mum.
Lynne said: “One of the reasons smoking is banned on NHS grounds, is to set a good example of health to future generations like Milly as smoking is the biggest cause of ill health, disability and early death in Lanarkshire.
“Smoking is much less common than it used to be yet the sad fact is, the place many children are most likely to witness it is on the hospital grounds of a health promoting organisation.
“This gives our younger generation mixed messages and undermines a lot of the health promotion work we do to educate children on the dangers of tobacco.”
The Scottish Government has recently confirmed that it is to bring in legislation that will make it an offence to smoke on hospital grounds.
However, NHS Lanarkshire is encouraging all those who smoke not to wait until the legislation becomes law and wants them to wait until they are away from entrances and off hospital grounds before they smoke.
Lynne continued: “If children see smoking they think it is normal, and given that 90 per cent of young people don’t smoke, we want to reinforce the message that it’s not normal.
“Similarly, we know that over 70 per cent of people who smoke wish they had never started which is why we’re appealing to them to help us set a good example to the next generation and prevent them from starting an addiction which they will later regret.
“By simply not smoking on health premises, they can help us do that.”
NHS Lanarkshire’s policy for smoke free grounds has wide public and staff support with a survey showing that over 90 per cent of the public and staff and over 80 per cent of smokers agree that hospital entrances should be smoke free.
With such overwhelming backing, the health board wants to appeal to the minority of smokers who do light up on hospital grounds to join the majority and wait until they are off grounds before doing so.
If you would like advice on how to stop, call 0300 303 0242 (Mon-Fri, 9am-5pm), text ‘advice’ to 81066 or visit www.nhslanarkshire.org.uk/HealthyLiving/StopSmoking/
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