The ACT Branch of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia will oversee an innovative program to help pregnant women quit smoking, in partnership with community pharmacies in Canberra.
The branch has been awarded two years of funding for the project under the ACT Government's Health Promotion Grants program.
The 'Quit for 2 through Community Pharmacy' program will urge the target audience of pregnant women who smoke, and women who continue to smoke after recently giving birth, to seek face-to-face quit advice and counselling in community pharmacies across the Territory.
Other groups will also collaborate in the scheme, with various ACT organisations providing women's health services assisting in disseminating the message.
The proposed outcomes include awareness of the benefits to mother and baby in quitting, accessibility of the service across the ACT and increased uptake by pregnant women who smoke.
The program follows on the 2014-16 ACT Community Pharmacy Smoking Cessation Counselling program which was also funded by the ACT government.
ACT Guild branch president, Amanda Galbraith, thanked the government, for "continuing to support the vital work that community pharmacies do in the field of smoking cessation.
"The accessibility of community pharmacies to all patients makes them the right place to try to improve the numbers of people who successfully quit smoking, and pharmacies are delighted to be playing a role," Galbraith added.
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