Narayana Health, the erstwhile Narayana Hrudayalaya, has collaborated with the Association of Occupational Health Karnataka (AHOK), for a Continuing Medical Education (CME) session on 'Smoking Cessation and Occupational Health at Workplace'.

The CME attracted employees from Toyota, Siemens, Jindal, BEL, NAL, HAL, ITI and Bangalore Dairy. The key objective of the event was to create awareness among corporate employees and healthcare practitioners on workplace related smoking and tobacco addictions.

Dr Diwakar Goutham, consultant, Neuropsychiatrist and Dr Sandeep M S, medical gastroenterologist, Mazumdar Shaw Medical Centre at NH Health City, shared insights on the ill-effects of tobacco usage and the occupational health hazard from gastrointestinal (GI) conditions respectively. Dr Sashikala Chandrasekar, president, AOHK, presided the event.

“Smoking at workplace can result in reduced productivity at work. It also impacts the life of fellow workers as well, due to passive smoking. A recent study in the US has proved that if a person does not smoke at workplace, it reduces his smoking tendencies at home as well. Thus, there should be policies at work which can help employees reduce the rate of smoking,” said Dr Goutham.

Dr Sandeep M S, medical gastroenterologist, Mazumdar Shaw Medical Centre said that the root cause of the gastro problems begin at work, where timely food consumption is vital along with medical check-ups at regular intervals. He also presented a complicated case about a worker from a lead factory who suffered from excessive inhalation of toluene at his workplace.