Last weekend yours truly and 8 of my friends drove up to Penang to attend a workshop for smoking cessation providers. The workshop was organised by MPS and conducted by the vibrant Prof Haniki of USM and Dr Sallehudin of Respiratory Medicine Institute (IPR), KL.
On the same day, news came out that Malaysian government has partnered with tobacco giants to promote non-smoking culture within our youths.
One question... Among all the companies in the world, why the tobacco companies?? DAP called it 'sleeping with the enemy' and I couldn't agree more!
Secondly, have any of you seen the advert? I had the opportunity to see it once. They went along the line that 'Smoking is an adult choice'... Are they saying that it is ok for adults to smoke but not the teens? Can they give us any clinical study that shows lung cancer, COAD and hundreds other diseases associated with smoking only affecting the youths and not the adults??? And knowing the rebellious nature of our youths today, don't they know that this tagline will only encourage them to smoke more just to prove that they're adults?? I'm so so disappointed....
They got RM20 million budget for the Tak Nak campaign and all they can come out with was this fancy yet stupid and misleading advert. If they're truly sincere about the campaign, why didn't they pay for the cessation workshop instead of us having to fork out the money ourselves. If they're truly sincere of wanting malaysians to stop smoking why don't they give us (HUKM)the money so that our patients can get the nicotine replacement therapy (NRTs) for free? Why don't set up (or help us setting up)a smoking cessation clinic? Don't they know that there is only ONE cessation clinic in KL?? (which is run by Dr Sallehudin)How pathetic is that?
In a few weeks' time (after our attachments with Dr Sallehudin), we will be certified smoking cessation providers... but what can we do? We can only give advice to our patients but without free NRTs available , I don't think we can go that far...
How frustrating...
