We are all coughing up for smokers
11/17/03
TAXPAYERS are said to be subsidising the health needs of smokers to the tune of $500,000 a day in NSW alone.
A cost analysis published in the Medical Journal of Australia today found tobacco was responsible for 43,571 admissions to the States hospitals and 300,046 hospital bed days in 1999-2000.
This amounted to hospital costs of more than $178 million, or almost $500,000 a day.
As the average bed-day cost in NSW hospitals for that period was reported as $595 per day, tobacco-attributed hospitalisation cost $178,527,370 in that one year alone, the report found.
The breakdown is not surprising considering the roll-call of tobacco-related diseases: cancer, Crohns disease, heart disease, heart failure, lung disease, pneumonia, spontaneous abortion and stroke to name a few.
Cigarettes
