'How I quit smoking': Hartlepool man urges smokers to join the number of town people beating the habit
Smokers have been urged to join the number of people quitting by a man who beat the killer habit after suffering a heart attack.
While smoking rates in Hartlepool have decreased since 2019, it still has the second highest average in the region with 13.5%, behind Middlesbrough which has 18.6%.
According to the Office for National Statistics, smoking rates in Hartlepool have decreased by 30% between 2019 and 2023, dropping from 19.3% of the town’s population in 2019 to 13.5% in 2023.
Yet they are still higher than the national average of 11.9%.
Campaigners at Fresh believe smoking is the region’s leading cause of health inequalities, the biggest cause of cancer and the largest cause of preventable deaths.
Councillor Tom Feeney, deputy leader of Hartlepool Borough Council, said: “Every year around 74,000 people die in England from smoking from diseases such as lung cancer, with many more living with debilitating smoking-related illnesses such as COPD.
"Smoking increases your risk of developing more than 50 serious health conditions."
Dr Neil O’Brien, a GP and chief medical officer for the North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board, added: “Supporting and encouraging people to quit smoking is still one of the most important and most effective things we can do to improve the health of people living in our region – especially people in our poorer communities who are more likely to smoke and die from smoking.”
Hartlepool care assistant Damon Mowbray quit smoking in 2021 after suffering a heart attack.
Damon was one of the 17.3% of people in Hartlepool who were smoking that year.
Speaking in support of the Stoptober campaign, Damon, 50, said: “I was doing a 12-hour night shift and had a pain in my chest and became ill.
"I just thought it was bad indigestion but it was also affecting my breathing. I tried to get through the shift but it turns out I was having a heart attack.”
Damon was admitted to Middlesbrough’s James Cook University Hospital and fitted with two stents.
He said: “After surgery I was admitted for three days and when I saw the doctor, he said my heart attack was caused by smoking, so I knew I had to quit there and then.”
He continued: “Once I’d made the decision to quit, I actually found it easy as I knew that if I started smoking again, I was risking my health.
"I didn’t want to have another heart attack or go through the same experience again.”
For advice on quitting, go to: https://www.freshquit.co.uk/