The main Tobacco Control Center at Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) has noticed an increase in the number of smokers who want to stop each year.
From 14 to 80 years old, smokers of all ages are welcomed at the center. All of the HMC clinics as well as outside clinics refer patients to the center. They also accept walk-ins and self-referrals.
“The number of people planning to stop smoking has increased. Every year, the Medical City center sees about 14,000 new patients. Al Khor, Al Wakra, Hamad General Hospital, and Hazm Mebaireek General Hospital are the four locations where the Center has branches. In various parts of the nation, it sees more patients. Dr. Ahmed Abdalla Elhassan, a smoking cessation specialist at the Tobacco Control Center, told The Peninsula that the facility offers medicine at reduced costs.
The center’s goal is to educate the general public about the risks of tobacco use while also offering behavioral support and counseling to smokers who want to quit. For the first time in Qatar, the center provides cutting-edge services like laser therapy to aid in quitting smoking.
Additionally, people who want to stop smoking go through a thorough evaluation that includes a full medical history and other assessments, like lung function tests. Clinicians discuss treatment options with patients as part of the assessment, including the most cutting-edge and successful ways to stop smoking.
“All forms of tobacco are harmful, and there is no safe level of exposure to tobacco,” said Smoking Cessation Specialist, Dr. Muslem M. Muslem.
He continued, “We provide preventative and free tobacco cessation services that help smokers stop, prevent hospital admission, and lower the high cost of treating many diseases like pulmonary, heart, and cancer.
The Tobacco Control Center organizes training workshops on how to lower the prevalence of tobacco use and smoking among school students in Qatar as a preventive measure against tobacco use.
The training program was held as part of the center’s initiatives to stop tobacco use in educational settings and the community at large and was intended for the nursing staff, social workers, and psychologists from a number of primary and secondary public schools in Qatar.
The Tobacco Control Center also offers a workshop for trainers on managing tobacco dependence: The workshop’s objective is to inform healthcare professionals about Qatar’s history of tobacco control, the epidemiology of tobacco use there, and the critical role tobacco cessation programs play in containing the country’s tobacco epidemic among adults.
