Chinese hospitals set to ban smoking!!!

Chinese hospitals

China will ban smoking in all hospitals and medical facilities from 2011, the Health Ministry said Friday, as the world’s most populous nation struggles to get its people to kick one of their favourite habits.

I was a little shocked when I read that smoking was still allowed inside Chinese hospitals – I’d have thought this would be one place a no smoking policy would be enforced.

Yet again, perhaps it’s not as surprising at all after the recent story of local government ordering workers to smoke nearly a quarter of a million packs of cigarettes.

China is the world’s largest cigarette producer and Chinese are the world’s most enthusiastic smokers, with a growing market of about 320 million making it a magnet for multinationals and focus of international health concerns.

Chinese cigarettes are also among the cheapest in the world, with a packet costing as little as a few pence. More than half of all male Chinese doctors also smoke.

Posted on May 25, 2009 | Filed Under Life