The former Smoke Free Sheffield Coordinator has been honoured with a special award for her contribution to making Sheffield smoke free, and immediately dedicated the award to her sister who is very ill with lung cancer.
Caroline Burrows worked as Smoke Free Sheffield Coordinator for Sheffield for over 2 years. She moved to a different role in Sheffield Primary Care Trust after the Government announced plans for it to become law for businesses to be smoke free, handing over responsibility for this area of work to the local authority for enforcement. It was after Caroline moved from this role that her sister was diagnosed with the illness.
Caroline was honoured with a special award at the Regional Smokefree Conference which took place in Rotherham recently. As part of the event, a number of awards were given to 21 businesses in the region who went smoke free before the legislation. Caroline received her award for her outstanding work supporting the many Sheffield businesses that have already gone smoke free well in advance of the approaching legislation.
Caroline was nominated for the award by Fiona Castle, widow of Roy Castle. Fiona Castle has been working to raise awareness of the dangers of passive smoking for the past thirteen years following the death of Roy in 1994. Roy, who died from lung cancer despite being a non-smoker, is thought to have contracted the disease through playing the trumpet in smoky jazz bars during the early part of his career.
Fiona said “Caroline has worked tirelessly towards the goal of providing smokefree air in public places in Sheffield. She is creative with her ideas and opportunities and friendly, efficient and encouraging to those with whom she comes into contact.”
Caroline said: “I am very grateful to receive this award and it means a lot that I was nominated for it by Fiona Castle.
“My sister Louise has 3 teenage children. She has always been an incredibly energetic and positive person and an inspiration to me and my other sisters. She is also a brilliant cook! She smoked as a young woman but quit over 20 years ago. However, she continued her career in the hospitality industry in the USA and thinks it is the second hand smoke from her job that caused her illness. She says she was ‘pickled’ in cigarette smoke throughout her working life as a caterer.
“It seems so ironic that I’ve been working for years educating people about the dangers of second hand smoke and trying to help protect staff working in the hospitality industry and now it’s affected my family in this way.
“I can only say that I am so glad that the law that came into force in England on July 1st will protect the many other people who work in the hospitality industry, and stop them having to work in smoky environments where their health is at risk.”
Call the Sheffield NHS Stop Smoking Service on 0800 068 4490 for more information on free stop smoking programmes at community locations.
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