Southern Perspective Shenzhen

Remember the good ol’ days when you could smoke in the hospital? Well, they are gone. Maybe not as progressive as New York, but a considerable one.  Smoking in China is considered a second sport.

South China’s Shenzhen City plans to fully prohibit the premises of all medical institutions in the city in 2011.

All medical institutions above city and district levels, including military hospitals, will ban smoking from June next year, while community health centers, clinics and private hospitals will impose the ban from December 2010, Yang Guoan, vice director of the city’s health education research institute, said at the meeting.

Anyone caught smoking at these institutions will be fined starting Jan. 1, 2011.

Policies for smoking controls inside the Special Economic Zone are still being studied and the levels of fines to be imposed have yet to be determined.

In addition, all doctors will be expected to record patients’ smoking histories when they visit hospitals for the first time, after the ban is imposed.

I am sure it won’t be missed.