Palm workers taking part in program to reduce cigarette intake

MURRAKEI Farms at Red Hills, near Deloraine, is looking after the health and wellbeing of its Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) workers by giving them access to programs that would not be available in their home countries.

During the past eight weeks, 21 of its employees who pick the farm’s raspberries and strawberries, agreed to take up a challenge to quit smoking through a program run by Royal Flying Doctor Service Tasmania in conjunction with NIB Health Insurance.

Five participants were from Tonga, five from the Solomon Islands and the remainder from Timor-Leste – all parts of the world where coffee, cigarettes and tobacco are both cheap and “normal”.

Murrakei Farm owner Suzie Clark heard about the program through her sister Chris Burt who is the Nicotine Management Nurse Consultant for the RFDS.

Ms Burt, who worked with participants on site, said that breaking nicotine addiction is hard, but it was encouraging to see that by the end of the sessions five workers had managed to quit smoking and others were well on the way.

She said even those who haven’t committed to quitting will return home with the knowledge and tools to know how to achieve success when they’re ready.

NIB funding also covers ongoing nicotine replacement therapies.

“We started with nicotine management education, working closely with the farm’s PALM facilitator and human resources staff and then we started the first week of the eight-week program with those who were happy to participate after the initial information session,” Ms Burt said.

Murrakei Farms team leader Eugebio was provided educational material in his native language Tetum and was able to reduce his smoking from 10 cigarettes a day to three.

“At first I struggled, but every day I said ‘I can do it’ and tried to say to myself, ‘just slowly, but I have to get there’. 

“Picking the berries, I think I have a lot more energy and I can last longer, the whole day.”

Ms Clark said the pilot program had exceeded expectations.

She and her sister were motivated by the fact that their father, who was a smoker, passed away at a relatively young age.

She said the program covered overall improvement to general health, encouraged a healthy diet and was not just all about stopping smoking, but coping mechanisms to make it easier.