Nurses and more quit smoking resources will be needed to help tax-hit smokers quit, say nursing smokefree advocates.
Smokefree Nurses Aotearoa/New Zealand (SNANZ) and the New Zealand Nurses Organisation welcomed the consecutive tobacco tax hikes hitting smokers over the next 18 months.
NZNO kaiwhakahaere Kerri Nuku says if the increased tax revenue is used for quit smoking programmes it would be a “win-win situation” and urged the government to make extra quit smoking resources available.
SNANZ director Grace Wong says the 8000 nurses trained by SNANZ to help smokers quit would be on hand to help smokers under financial pressure and they are encouraging other nurses to do the online smoking cessation course.
“If each of these trained nurses gives the 30-second, evidence-based brief advice to just one smoker a day, she can help six smokers to quit a year,” Wong says. SNANZ, based at AUT university, has worked with the Ministry of Health and National Heart Foundation to provide face-to-face quit smoking programmes for 4500 nurses and since late last year a further 3500 have done the online training.
Nurses shared their smokefree vision for New Zealand at the recent Mäori Affairs Select Committee inquiry into the tobacco industry.
Nuku said NZNO's Te Runanga o Aotearoa acknowledged the high proportion of Mäori nurses who smoked and called on the government to support quit programmes for nurses and specifically programmes for Mäori nurses. “By helping our own workforce to quit, as well as our patients, we can go some way towards undoing the terrible damage caused by the tobacco industry over past decades.”
Smokfree Nurses director Grace Wong said with 40,000 nurses in the country they were confident nurses could “tip the balance” to make tobacco smoking “history”.
Nuku said a recent smoking and nursing survey conducted by the Auckland University of Technology and Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) found that 9 out of 10 nurses felt it was part of their responsibility to advise clients to stop smoking and most said they’d happily spend an extra five minutes with each patient who smoked if they could effectively intervene. “The NZNO wants to support nurses to do this and to see smoking cessation advice and support as part of their daily practice”.
She also said bizarre as it seems the tobacco industry in the past had used “smiling rosy-checked” nurses in their advertisements to try and associate smoking with health benefits.
Nuku said nurses who still smoke today after often stigmatised and face more criticism than most over their addiction and targeted programmes were needed to support them to quit.
“We believe a unified nursing profession taking the Smokefree message to the wards, clinics, workplaces, schools and homes will be a powerful force in further reducing New Zealand’s 5000-a-year death toll from smoking.”
