Mental health smoking ban

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Updated Tue May 25, 2010 2:36pm AEST

• Map: Launceston 7250

Northern Tasmania's primary mental health ward is banning smoking on its grounds in a bid to stop patients using the habit as a way of coping with stress and anxiety.

Northside at the Launceston General Hospital will instead provide in-patients with nicotine replacement therapy.

Strategic Nurse Coordinator Catherine Schofield says people with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are more than three times more likely to smoke than other Australians

"It would appear that more people smoke that have a mental illness," she said.

"Really given the long term health consequences of smoking, it is something that we need to more assertively address and challenge and be supportive of our clients actually giving up.

"There's also the issue of really wanting to address this culture that exists that mentally ill people smoke and that that's OK.

"So we're looking very closely at how we can do that in the most supportive manner possible."

A secure psychiatric facility in Hobart is the only other in-patient clinic in Tasmania with a no-smoking rule.

Tags: ethics, mental-health, smoking, tas, hobart-7000, launceston-7250

First posted Tue May 25, 2010 2:37pm AEST