Public Servant Lifestyle

Doctors are have indicated that British workplaces should be made completely smoke free, for the sake of the nation's health. At the British Medical Association’s (BMA) annual conference in Llandudno, Dr Peter Maguire - a consultant from Northern Ireland and the Deputy Chairman of the BMA Board of Science - signed a giant prescription form in front of 500 doctors, calling on the Government to make all workplaces smoke free.

While proposing the motion on smoking Dr Maguire also read from some of the four and half thousand doctors' letters that the BMA have presented to the Prime Minister, calling for the Government to ban smoking in enclosed public places.

At the beginning of June the BMA urged 1000 doctors to write a letter to the Prime Minister on this issue - to represent the 1000 people who die every year from second-hand tobacco smoke. By the end of that same month 4,500 letters were received from Doctors eager to add their professional weight to the campaign.

Quotes from the letters make harrowing reading – and point to something of a consensus on the part of British medics. Typical quotes include:

"As a public health doctor, I deal daily with the devastating impact of smoking. Smoking remains the main cause of preventable illness and death in the UK, and a major cause of health inequalities."

"As a doctor engaged in research into children's conditions affecting the spine and chest, I know that for infants and children, the effects of second-hand smoke can be serious."

"I have experience of a family in which the mother smokes and the youngest child has had frequent admissions with acute asthma attacks, but the mother has never stopped smoking."

In the UK approximately three million workers are regularly exposed to second-hand smoke and around 1.3 million workers are exposed to second-hand smoke at least 75% of the time. Workers in lower socio-economic groups run the greatest risk of exposure.

Dr Maguire said: "I live in Northern Ireland and yet I travel down to the Republic because I know that's where I have the choice to enjoy a beer in a smoke free pub. I have seen that the ban on smoking in public places in Ireland has not affected business – business is booming there. Smoke free places means life not death. The British Government needs to have courage and follow the lead of Ireland, New York and Norway."

Dr John Garner, chairman of the BMA's Scottish Council said: "Everyday doctors deal with the ill health effects of smoking. Smoke free workplaces would save more than 100 lives in Scotland each year and offer protection to workers who are exposed to the potentially damaging health risks of second hand smoke on a daily basis.

"Smoking does not just cost health, it costs Scottish businesses. Employee smoking is estimated to cost businesses in Scotland as much as £450 million from lost productivity and an additional £4 million as a result of fire damage. Therefore it is not just good health sense, but good business sense to create smoke free workplace.

"While we support legislation to ban smoking in regulated areas where food is served, currently under consideration by the Scottish Parliament's Health Committee, it is our view that a comprehensive workplace ban, similar to that in Ireland, would provide more effective protection and save even more lives.

"Scotland has already shown great leadership in bringing this subject to the fore and the public appears to be supportive of such legislation. The Liberal Democrats have already acknowledged the benefit to public health of a ban, it is now up to our country's leaders to take action."

The British Medical Journal (BMJ) has claimed that the risks of dying – or of contracting serious illness – as a result of exposure to second-hand smoke has been underestimated in the past. There is now – according to the findings - conclusive evidence that second-hand smoke causes lung cancer, heart disease and respiratory infections.

More information available in Work Life Balance