Deaths Due to Smoking in Indonesia Ranks Third

Jakarta (ANTARA) - Deaths due to diseases caused by smoking in Indonesia ranks third largest in the world after China and India.

"Smoking is a habit which eventually becomes a character. How to cope with how to change his mind, until it was stopped for not smoking," said Director of Medical Hospital Sahirman Sahid Memorial Hospital (SSMH), dr. Agus Harry Alamudin in the inauguration of the hospital here on Wednesday.

According to him, in 2010 the hospital received about 2654 employees of several companies that perform health checks. From the anamnesa results 69 percent do not smoke, while 31 percent have 11-20 rods per day of smoking habit.



"One of the suggestions given to smokers with chronic disease is to stop smoking," he said.

To help smokers cope with the problem during an attempt to stop smoking, SSMH Hospital with PT Pfizer Indonesia open the Stop Smoking Clinic in Jakarta.

"In the clinic smoking not only treated pharmacologically with drugs, but also control it with an nonpharmacologic treatment which is to education against smoking so that smokers know how to stop it," Alamudin added.

Meanwhile, SSMH's specialists dr. Aulia Sani explain the incidence of chronic diseases can be easily and quickly be reduced only by changing lives.

"Reducing smoking is one effort of behaviors change that can help prevent chronic disease or reduce complications of the disease. Therapy of the Stop Smoking Clinic conducted a thorough and consistent so that the estimated success rate is higher than patients who do pharmacological therapy alone," said Aulia.

Marketing Director of PT Pfizer Indonesia, dr. Selly H. Rorong said the method of combining psychological and pharmacological therapies in the clinic can be used as a reference for medical services throughout Indonesia to help patients escape from nicotine addiction.

"Through innovative breakthroughs in the prevention of nicotine addiction, we expect to overcoming the problem of smoking in Indonesia can be more effective and integrated," she said.

Stop Smoking Clinic therapy provided by physicians in an integrated team for 12 weeks in Sahid Sahirman Memorial Hospital starting from individual psychological consulting, vent sessions, pharmacologic therapy to regular monitoring through the "Customer Relationship Management" (CRM).