Kiwi nurses were today hosting a lunch at ICN Melbourne for 22 nursing leaders from around the world to promote nursing’s role in tobacco control and quitting smoking campaigns.
The lunch was organised by Smokefree Nurses Aotearoa and NZNO’s Te Runanga o Aotearoa to highlight the importance of smoking cessation to reduce the risk of non-communicable diseases like cancer and heart disease.
Grace Wong, spokesperson for Smokefree Nurses Aotearoa said tobacco use is the only common risk factor to all the four non-communicable diseases (cardiovascular diseases, chronic respiratory diseases, cancer and diabetes) that are currently the focus of a United Nations global agenda to prevent and control the diseases.
Smokefree Nurses Aotearoa recently gained the contract to support the work of the global nursing network Tobacco Control Nurses International (TCNI) which includes on its board the leading tobacco control nursing advocates Jennifer Percival from the United Kingdom and Ruth Malone of the United States.
The Kiwi tobacco control nursing group’s first role has been to promote nursing’s role in reducing tobacco dependence at the International Council of Nurses (ICN) biennial congress now underway in Melbourne.
Wong said it working with ICN member, the New Zealand Nursing Organisation, to host the lunch which national nursing organisation leaders from the United States, Italy and Russia were due to attend.
Speakers at the lunch included emeritus professor Robert Beaglehole, who founded anti-smoking group ASH, NZNO kaiwhakahaere Kerri Nuku, Wong herself and NZNO co-president and ICN board member Marion Guy.
