Few patients at smoking cessation clinic  

江西首个戒烟门诊门可罗雀 4年仅诊疗180人

“成立四年了，但只有约180人来这接受戒烟诊疗”，30日，位于南昌市第二医院内的江西首个戒烟门诊专职医生舒琴如此表示。

Nanchang (CNS) -- This may be World No Tobacco Day, but at a clinic designed to help people quit smoking in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, all is quiet.

"It has been four years since our foundation, but only 180 people have come to our clinic to kick the smoking habit," said Dr. Shu Qin, who works at Jiangxi's first smoking cessation clinic in No. 2 Hospital.

As a pilot location for the national smoking cessation project, our clinic was established in May 2008, offering psychotherapy, behavioral therapy and drug therapy to smokers, said Shu.

Among the 180 patients, only six have received drug treatment, while the majority just comes for advice about how to quit, Shu added.

The patients are but a tiny fraction of China's massive smoking population. According to Shu, many smokers are unaware that such clinics even exist. A number of smokers don't know how severely it harms people's health, or they are unwilling to go to a hospital for fear of criticism and losing face, Shu added.