Southaven, Miss., June 14, 2005– The Baptist Memorial Hospital-DeSoto Tobacco Clinic will begin another smoking cessation class on Monday, June 27 in the hospital’s cardiac rehabilitation area.

The free six-week class, funded by The Partnership for a Healthy Mississippi and managed by the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, is designed to meet the needs of the growing number of Mississippians who have requested local and personal assistance in their efforts to quit smoking. The program combines individual and group meetings conducted by trained tobacco specialists with free nicotine replacement patches to help participants eliminate their tobacco habit. Each group is limited to 15 participants.

The Partnership for a Healthy Mississippi’s ACT Tobacco Treatment Program is staffed by a team of health care professionals and offers education, treatment and research in the area of tobacco prevention and cessation. Staff members include dentists, nurses, psychologists, physicians and others. The program was tested during a pilot program in the fall of 2003 and spring of 2004 at six sites across the state. Of the more than 1,800 patients who were seen during the pilot, nearly 73 percent reported successfully quitting by the end of the program. Cessation programs like these are credited with reducing Mississippi’s adult smoking rate from 25 percent in 2002 to 22 percent in 2003.

For more information or to join a group, please call (662) 349-7676 and leave your name and phone number.

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