50 clinics in city will help kick the butt

In what will be a shot in the arm for the Union government’s efforts to curb smoking in public places, private hospitals and clinicians are joining hands to start cessation clinics to help people kick the butt.

By 2010, the country will have about 600 such clinics, with 50-odd in the city. Byculla’s Masina Hospital, which already has a psychiatric unit treating patients with nicotine dependence, will be designed as one of the clinics. The psychiatric unit will be restructured as an alternative and holistic system for smoking cessation. This will be done in collaboration with a pharmaceutical company. 

“The key challenge to smoking cessation is a psychological barrier, one that forbids smokers from admitting that they need help, let alone medication, to quit smoking,” psychiatrist Dr Yusuf Matcheswalla of Masina Hospital said. “Our primary task is to encourage patients to consider treatment as quitting cold turkey has an almost negligible rate of success,” Dr Matcheswalla, who will be heading the clinic, said.

The treatment will involve counselling patients to understand their psychological and physical conditions and will be supplemented with medicines.

In cessation clinics, patients will receive personalised care and will also remain under supervision for a period of up to a year. “This is to ensure that their attempts are met with success,” said Dr Matcheswalla.

The clinic will have counsellors, psychologists and social workers, and will assist patients with their holistic recovery by offering interpersonal therapy, behaviour modification therapy, cognitive-behaviour therapy, group therapy, family therapy, meditation, and bibliotherapy.

After implementing the smoking ban, the Union government has done little to start cessation clinics to help people wanting to quit smoking. A source from Maharashtra’s directorate of health services said they have not received any instructions from the Union health ministry to start more cessation clinics.