Al Barsha Primary Healthcare Centre to hold smoking cessation clinic.

United Arab Emirates, Dubai, September 18, 2013: Under the patronage and in presence  of His Excellency Engineer Essa Al Maidoor, director-general of the Dubai Health Authority(DHA), the Al Barsha Primary Healthcare Centre inaugurated yesterday a  smoking cessation clinic.

The move to have a dedicated smoking cessation clinic at the centre is line with the Dubai Tobacco Free Project which was implemented in 2009 and the Dubai Health Strategy 2013-2025.

The clinic will take place every Tuesday from 7:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and medical professionals/counsellors will provide smoking cessation therapy to help clients in their attempts to quit tobacco consumption.

Dr Ahmad Kalban, CEO of Primary Healthcare at the DHA said: “This clinic will cater to people who want to quit smoking by addressing their individual problems and by giving them medical and psychological support. Tobacco use is known to cause a host of chronic diseases and is the leading cause of lung cancer. The aim of this clinic is to reach out to smokers to help them cope with nicotine withdrawal symptoms which is a factor that often dissuades them from stubbing the habit.”

Kalban added that in future the DHA plans to open more cessation clinics. He said: “ We opened the first cessation clinic in Al Twar primary healthcare centre and last year we opened a dedicated cessation clinic in the Higher Colleges of Technology campus in order to help adolescents quit smoking at a young age. We will add more cessation clinics in future as such initiatives are an important aspect of preventive healthcare.”

Dr Hanan Obaid, head of Dubai Tobacco Free Project and head of community health services, DHA primary healthcare sector said: “We have developed a smoking cessation package so that smokers who visit the cessation clinic receive all aspects of medical care to help them stub the habit. The package  includes blood investigations, ECG, Smokerlyzer test to measure the levels of toxic carbon monoxide (CO) inhaled from tobacco smoke. The clinic will also provide medical and psychological support to smokers who are dealing with nicotine withdrawal symptoms which include irritability, restlessness and anxiety.”

She said all DHA hospitals and health clinics can refer patients to this clinic. “ In many cases, doctors will refer cases to us because the patient needs to urgently stop smoking to avoid further health complications. Such cases include smokers who have recently had a heart attack etc.”

She said that cigarette smoking is the number one risk factor for lung cancer and that tobacco smoke is a toxic mix of more than 7,000 chemicals, many  of which are  poisons. At least 70 are known to cause cancer. Obaid added: “ People who quit smoking have a lower risk of lung cancer but their risk is higher than the risk for people who never smoked.  However, it is important to note that quitting tobacco at any age can lower the risk of cancer and other chronic diseases.”

The Smoking Cessation Clinic at Al Barsha provides cessation programs and counselling every |Tuesday, for more information, please call 04-502330 and the Al Twar centre provides cessation programs and counseling every Thursday, fore more information, please call 04- 2612114 or 04-5022101.