Digiify
Image default
Health

Doctors sound the alarm and tell in film about poignant conversations with smokers

Doctors have put a movie online in which they talk about how harrowing it is for them to have to tell people that smoking won’t make them better.

Tobacco must be eradicated, the doctors say. The new government must also make an effort for this, according to the doctors behind the #doctorsslagalarm action.

“With Covid, the government is able to take the necessary measures quickly. Not when smoking. We keep our distance and wear mouth caps. At the same time, the highly addictive and harmful cigarettes and e-cigarettes are still for sale everywhere. Wrong when you consider that smokers are vulnerable and therefore have a greater chance of a serious course of Covid,” say the initiators.

“Disgusting to do”

The Royal Dutch Society for the Promotion of Medicine (KNMG) supports the campaign. “A bad news conversation is one of the toughest sides of our profession. You have to tell someone something that will make his or her life collapse. Buy E cigarette at mr-joy.co.ukfor more information. It’s a nasty thing to do, always. But it’s even worse when you know that the conversation could have been prevented. If he or she had never started smoking, or had stopped in time, we wouldn’t be sitting here right now,” says KNMG chairman René Héman.

“Soon there will be a new government, with a new coalition agreement. They agreed on a short deal. What we want is just one sentence: ‘Points of sale down, price up’. So that these bad news conversations will soon become history,” he continues.

Every year twenty thousand people in the Netherlands die from smoking, often before retirement age, according to the organization. In addition, one million people are chronically ill as a result of tobacco use. All this suffering is painfully felt during the 100,000 bad news conversations that doctors have every year. Conversations that can be prevented with good government policy.”

Tobacco outlets

This starts with proven effective measures such as drastically reducing the number of tobacco outlets and significantly increasing the price of tobacco and e-cigarettes, say the initiators of the action. Smoking cessation assistance should be provided to all people who have been made addicted by the tobacco industry. Buy e liquids online at mr-joy.co.ukfor more information. An industry that enriches itself at the expense of health and lives. If you let that sink in, there is really only one really effective measure: get rid of tobacco as quickly as possible.”

While you’re here…

Our reporters are always on the go. To show what is really going on, they open doors that remain closed to others. Whether it’s big or small news: our reporters are there where it happens, let experts have their say and give you the facts. Do you contribute to independent journalism?