WINNIPEG — A new study by the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy suggests people who have smoked cost the province a lot of money.
The research linked people’s smoking to their health care and found smokers cost Manitoba an extra $244 million each year.
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About $147 million is for hospital costs, $40 million for prescription drugs, $39 million for extra visits to the doctor and $18 million for smoking-related cancer care.
“To put it into perspective, the mental health budget is $241 million every year, so the costs related to smoking are in excess of that,” said Nathan Nickel, a research scientist at the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy.
The survey results from 45,000 Manitobans showed that people who ever smoked went to the hospital 12 per cent more than people who never smoked. Once they got into the hospital they spent 21 per cent more days in the there compared with those who never smoked and 10 per cent more on prescription drugs.
Some say this is due to the lack of help for smokers to quit.
“The current influx in the use of e-cigarettes, for example, is an example of people feeling I need something else, I need more resources than I’m getting,” said Executive Director of MANTRA Murray Gibson
Some of the most surprising findings from the study were related to life expectancy.
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On average, those who never smoked only lived about a year and a half longer than those who have smoked and two years longer than those who smoke every day.
“You have more medications, you may be having less activity levels, just your general quality of life is not necessarily better just because you’re living longer,” said the Lung Association of Manitoba’s Sheila McIntosh.
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Smokers were 10 times more likely to develop specific forms of cancer connected to tobacco use, such as lung or throat cancers.
“This type of evidence can really provide support for efforts around helping folks to stop smoking, as well as interventions to help prevent folks from ever picking up a cigarette in the first place,” said Nickel. “Individuals who never picked up a cigarette ever in their life just have a better quality of life.”
The results did not include costs associated with second-hand smoke.
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