Country Director World Health Organisation (WHO) Dr Khalif Bile on Wednesday said health professionals should play due role in making their respective hospitals smoking free and avoid smoking openly.
"If they don't care then who will do this job as hospitals are visited by children also," he said while addressing the participants of consultative meeting on plan of action by Tobacco Control Initiative here on Wednesday.
He said there is need to have complete ban on smoking in the country's hospitals, hotels and educational institutions, adding, allocating designated smoking areas in the premises is not enough to protect the health of non-smokers.
Country Director WHO said there is need to set up task force with the participation of major stakeholders to implementing plan of action regarding tobacco control initiative.
He said all ministries and departments should be part of this initiative and urged to make joint efforts for control of smoking in the country and educating people about hazardous effects of tobacco use particularly on women and children. He said it is high time to take effective measures to promote cessation of tobacco use and protecting mother and child from the negative effects of smoking.
Shahzad Alam Khan of WHO said 'WHO's framework convention on Tobacco Control' is powerful global public health treaty, that is catalysing the burden of disease attributable to tobacco consumption.
He said Pakistan has ratified this treaty along with 168 signatories and parties. He added the treaty pleads for adoption and implementation of effective legislative, executive and administrative measures for testing and measuring the contents and emissions of tobacco products.
He said several countries have finalised laws requiring picture-based warnings on cigarette packets while many countries have developed picture-based warning. He said WHO is committed to scale up efforts to control tobacco including full implementation of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.
Director General Implementation, Tobacco Control Initiative Mrs Shaheen Masud said the meeting was organised with an aim to devising inter-sectoral strategies to control tobacco use in the light of the Ordinance and WHO framework convention on Tobacco Control.
She said under the five-year strategic plan of action, national communication strategy will be prepared for tobacco control with the support of various stakeholders to make ongoing programs innovative.
She said in order to create awareness among public about tobacco hazards and implementation of related laws all concerned ministries will be involved besides NGOs, civil societies and media professionals. The participants were of view that tobacco use in Pakistan is not limited to cigarette smoking, adding, pipe smoking with chillum and hookah and chewing tobacco in pan, snuff and niswar are some other common ways of intake.
Health professionals said that tobacco is one of the most risk factors for non-communicable diseases in the country. They added adults exposed chronically to tobacco smoke may suffer a range of health problems.
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