Written by Rachel Scapillati

Photo by Duncan Day-Myron

There is someone in your life, whether it is a parent, sibling, relative or friend who smokes. Chances are that you have known someone who died from tobacco related causes. The tragedy is that smoking causes the largest number of preventative diseases in Ontario, according to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health’s (CAMH) website.

There is now good news for people addicted to smoking. The Ministry of Health Promotion and Sports, and the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care announced last week an increased access to nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) in family health teams (FHT) throughout Ontario.

This new program is an extension of the CAMH’s STOP on the Road program, which implemented both NRT treatment and counseling for people addicted to smoking.

“We were definitely interested in taking part, our executive director has actually responded by saying he wanted to be on the implementation committee,” said Michaela Devries-Aboud, a health promoter with the Guelph Family Health Team. “So this new program will essentially be the same program as STOP on the Road, but run through the FHT. The CAMH will provide the NRT and then we’ll distribute it.”

Nurses in the Guelph FHT, or any FHT implementing this new program, are trained through the Training Enhancement in Applied Cessation Counseling and Health program, which makes them qualified to provide both the NRT treatment and counseling for smokers if needed.

The benefits of using the NRT to quit outweigh trying to quit on your own with no support system.

“Taking the NRT doubles your chances of quitting in what the statistics show,” Devries-Aboud said. “And it’s also giving the patients free access to the NRT treatment. The thing is that a lot of people say they can’t afford the NRT and so this is giving it to them for free in hopes that because they now have access to it they make use of it and successfully quit.”

This treatment entails many different types of NRT, which are given to the smoker based on their individual needs. Some of the NRTs provided by the Guelph FHT are the nicotine patch, a lower dosage patch and gum combination, the inhaler and the lozenge.

Exact details of the new program’s plans are not known yet as the announcement was made last week, but in order to qualify for the program, you must be a patient with a FHT.

“This program is open to FHT patients only and it’s each FHT that is running the program,” she said. “So if students are patients of the University Health Centre on campus they’re not going to be eligible for it.”

There is another program available to University of Guelph students at the Health Centre called Leave the Pack Behind and is similar to the NRT treatment program hosted by Guelph FHT.

Devries-Aboud also clarifies any FHT in Ontario can apply to become part of the program, so if your FHT is not in Guelph, you can still check with your doctor to see if it’s available in that area.

During STOP on the Road program, there was an age limit of 18 or older, but Devries-Aboud and the FHTs have not yet been informed if the new program will have an age limit.

“We have another program that we run called FHT to Quit,” she said. “It’s a six week program that we run and it’s solely counseling based. People might start taking the NRT or one of the medications while in counseling and the person who runs it finds there’s a 50 per cent quit rate, which is very high. I would say the counseling aspect is very important to quitting smoking and there is no age limit. You can register online at www.guelphfht.com.”

Your anonymous comment may be printed in The Ontarion's print publication.