So far this year, 66 patients have been discharged from the smoking cessation clinics located in the five health areas of Guantanamo city, says Dr. Leyanis Napoles Reina, deputy director for medical and social assistance in that territory.
The specialist in integral general medicine (MGI) assures that most of these patients are between 18 and 59 years old, who spontaneously attended the consultations offered every Friday in the rehabilitation rooms of each polyclinic.
Nowadays, about a hundred patients attend the smoking cessation services in the province to be evaluated by the multidisciplinary team, made up of specialists in Natural and Traditional Medicine, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, as well as a physiotherapist and two graduates in nursing and psychology, respectively.
Doctors and graduates provide relaxation techniques and other proposals to help quit nicotine, including maintaining a healthy diet with fruits, vegetables and plenty of water, ideal for purifying the body during the detoxification process, which requires time, effort and willpower.
Patients also receive other tools to control the anxiety derived from tobacco abstinence, a habit related to multiple cardiovascular diseases and several types of cancer (mouth, larynx, lung, bladder).
In Guantanamo, tobacco cessation services also contribute to promote every May 31st the World No Tobacco Day, an event established since 1987 by the World Health Assembly, with the purpose of bringing the public closer to the lethal effects of nicotine on health and to protect future generations from this preventable epidemic.
Translated and edited by Dayla Perez Ortiz
