Current trends of tobacco consumption have shown that tobacco cessation is an important component of bringing the tobacco usage further down. Tobacco Quit line already available in Sri Lanka can be used to encourage cessation which could help with this.
However current quit line operations are not that adequate to meet our targets, and we felt that the quality of our counselling also needs improvement. Therefore to improve this Quit line (QL) and the services, National Authority on Tobacco and Alcohol (NATA) organized a training workshop in collaboration with the experts from University of Washington who have conducted trainings on this area, in various parts of the world. The expertize team consisted of Dr.Abigail Halperin (Senior lecturer in Medicine and Public Health at University of Washington),Dr.Dongbo Fu ( Technical officer for tobacco cessation), Ms.Etta Short and Mr.Ken Wassum who are pioneeres in this field. This was a good opportunity for the participating officers involved in this area to improve their skills which will help them to provide a better service to the country.
Work shop was conducted from 13th – 16th June 2017 at the seminar room,11th floor, stage 2 ,Sethsiripaya, Battaramulla with the participation of number of Counsellors from Ministry of Health and NGO’s.We hope that this exercise has definitely assisted counselors and the quitters to achieve their targets.
