Date:31/05/2005 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2005/05/31/stories/2005053115460300.htm

New Delhi

Targeting the `smoking doctors'

Bindu Shajan Perappadan

Doctors who are heavy smokers set bad examples and become redundant in helping patients who are trying to quit

NEW DELHI: He is a doctor and he smokes. This is the contradiction that the Central Government along with the World Health Organisation promises to stub out this year under its theme "Health Professionals in Tobacco Control" which will also be the centre of all programmes planned for World No Tobacco Day this Tuesday, May 31.

Pulling up doctors who are heavy smokers, a study commissioned by the World Health Organisation and United Nation Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, conducted in India and Bangladesh, 2005 will be released on May 31 and will provide an insight into tobacco abuse among health professionals in India, comparing them with figures from physicians in Bangladesh.

Doctors who are often role models, according to the survey, because of being heavy smokers set bad examples and in a way become redundant in helping patients who are trying to quit.

The report, complied at Ahmedabad Dental College, has worked on a representative sample and investigated the disadvantage of `smoking doctors' for the first time, gauging their impact on society and role in effective tobacco control programme.

The study revealed that 10 per cent of the doctors at college tested were heavy smokers, worse there was an acute shortage of good trained health professional to help patients quit, also the methods being used to help patients quit, noted the survey, required an immediate overhaul.

"The major thrust this year is to target health professionals and encash on the significant role they can play in addressing the global tobacco epidemic. Generally they have high credibility with the general population and reach a high percentage of the target population ," explained Director of Hirday Shan, an NGO , Monika Arora.