(Vienna, 04-06-2019) In addition to the building where smoking is already prohibited, the entire area of the AKH Vienna - Medical University Campus will become a smoke-free zone as at 1 July 2020. This decision was announced to the employees of AKH Vienna and MedUni Vienna as well as the students last Monday during an information event.
The decision had previously been agreed upon in the Management Board of the joint direction of AKH Vienna and MedUni Vienna in coordination with the members of the works council and the personnel representatives. "With this smoking ban throughout the campus, we recognise our responsibility for the health of all employees and patients and fulfil our position of role model as Austria's leading health institutions", says Vice Rector Oswald Wagner, who is responsible for clinical matters of MedUni Vienna.
Herwig Wetzlinger, Director of AKH Vienna, emphasised: "The conversion to a smoke-free zone of the entire area of the AKH Vienna - Medical University Campus is accompanied by numerous measures particularly to facilitate employees as well as students who smoke to implement this step in their personal work environment." Thus, as at 3rd July 2019, there will be an internal contact point at AKH Vienna where experts of the Center for Public Health of MedUni Vienna provide counselling for smokers and assistance to stop smoking to all employees who wish to comply with the smoking ban within AKH Vienna, but who do not want to abandon the consumption of tobacco entirely in their private life.
Responsibility for the health of Austrians
Back in 2018, MedUni Vienna and AKH Vienna presented the campaign "Doctors against smoking" in the context of a discussion on the Non-Smokers' Protection Act with the support of numerous scientists with the assistance of a specially designed website (https://www.meduniwien.ac.at/kontra-rauchen) and compiled facts and information from a medical-scientific aspect on the harmful consequences of active and passive smoking.
In addition, the current guidebook "Risiko Rauchen – wie Nikotin wirkt, warum es abhängig macht und wie man die Sucht besiegt" (Smoking risk - how nicotine works, why it is addictive and how to beat the addiction) in cooperation between MedUni Vienna and MANZ Verlag, where authors Michael Kunze and Gerda Bernhard explain the associated health risks and how to best beat the habit. Plus: Tips for day X, the day of the last cigarette. Bernhard/Kunze: Risiko Rauchen (Smoking risk). MANZ 2019. 160 pages RRP € 21.90. ISBN 978-3-214-13743-4 (https://www.manz.at/list.html?isbn=978-3-214-13743-4).
For MedUni Vienna employees: Click here for concrete offers of support on the Intranet