Get help quitting smoking at the Packhorse Shopping Centre in Huddersfield

Mar 10 2010 by Katie Grant, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

SMOKERS are being urged to kick the habit as part of national No Smoking Day.

And if you need more information and support before making the big step, help is on hand from Kirklees Stop Smoking specialist advisors.

Between April last year and the beginning of 2010, the team helped 543 people in Kirklees stub out cigarettes for good – that’s a 72% success rate.

They will be in the Packhorse Shopping Centre in Huddersfield today from 10am to 2pm to offer help to others wanting to quit.

Specialist Stop Smoking Advisor Joy Thomas said: “Stopping smoking is the single most important thing you can do to improve your health and the health of those around you and it has huge and immediate benefits to smokers of all ages.

“Ex-smokers live longer and report better health than those who keep smoking, no matter what age they stop.”

The Stop Smoking team will be showing people computer-generated images of what they will look like in the future if they don’t go smoke-free soon.

Certain chemicals in cigarettes cause narrowing of the blood vessels in the outermost layers of your skin, which impairs blood flow to your skin.

This means your skin doesn’t get as much oxygen and important nutrients like vitamin A.

Joy said: “You can also get wrinkles from the repeated exposure to the heat from burning cigarettes and the facial expressions you make when smoking – such as pursing your lips when inhaling and squinting your eyes to keep out smoke.”

From today, anyone caught smoking outside Dewsbury and District Hospital and also Pinderfields General Hospital, Clayton Hospital, and the Birth Centre in Wakefield will be given a ‘yellow card’ and asked to stub out their cigarette.

Dr Colin White, consultant physician, said: “We want to ensure that our hospitals are healthy places for patients, visitors and staff and it is my duty as a doctor to advise smokers to stop smoking for the good of their health.