Hope Hospital, Maharagama promotes smoking!
Hope Hospital in Maharagama is an institution dedicated to the treatment and prevention of cancer, with around 2,500 patients being treated at its outpatient department a day. However, it has now become a place that promotes smoking and betel chewing, reports say.
Certain minor employees of the hospital do smoking at the premises in violation of circulars that ban smoking during duty hours. Also, the persons who are looking after the residential patients for a fee too, do likewise. All these are despite the posters being displayed on hospital walls that discourage smoking and betel chewing.
Oral cancer is the most common form of cancer among Sri Lankans. The main reasons attributed to that is smoking and betel chewing, doctors say.