Open letter to the leaders of Pacific Cigar

Dear Chief Executive Officer Mr. Dag Holmboe and Pacific Cigar (Thailand) general manager Joe Thawilvejjakul:
I would like to request that Pacific Cigar change the name of its Bangkok store "The Nurse" to something that does not suggest that nurses or other health professionals condone the use of your health-damaging products. I also request that you find uniforms for your staff that are something other than nursing or health care professional uniforms. Suggesting that nurses are selling cigars and wine is damaging to the image of nursing as well as to public health.

Nurses are in the business of promoting health. Cigars have long been known to harm health, from the painful and disfiguring head and neck cancers we help patients live with, to the disabling emphysema that patients learn to manage with our help, before they eventually suffocate. And while some studies have found that wine can have beneficial effects on health, it also adds to trauma by leading to drunken driver crashes and worsening domestic violence. In fact, nurses are often the victims of those who drink too much alcohol--since nurses are on the front lines of health care delivery, they are often assaulted by patients who are under the influence of alcohol. For these reasons, nurses do not wish to be known as promoting cigars or wine. Your marketing campaign has damaged the image of nurses, and may have led some to the mistaken belief that it would be healthy to consume cigars and unlimited amounts of alcohol. I strongly urge you to cease using "nurses" to sell your products.

As you may know, we are in the midst of a global nursing shortage that is predicted to vastly worsen over the next two decades. Many nurses from Asia are recruited to countries overseas where they can earn more money, so this is especially relevant to Thailand and Hong Kong. Research studies have shown that when nurses are short-staffed and take care of twice as many patients as they should, their patients are 31% more likely to die within a month. This under-staffing also causes nursing burnout, which worsens the nursing shortage. There is also a critical shortage of nursing faculty. So, regardless of where you live, the nursing crisis is serious and life-threatening. It is the responsibility of everyone to try to repair the nursing crisis--especially those who are harming the profession.

In addition to asking you to stop your "nurse" marketing, I also urge you to help repair the damage by joining an image campaign, or by working with the Nurses Association of Thailand to improve the image of nursing. An image campaign would help increase recruitment and retention of nurses and nursing faculty, which would in turn promote better health care for all. Please join us in that goal.

Thank you.

Sandy Summers, RN, MSN, MPH
Executive Director
The Center for Nursing Advocacy
203 Churchwardens Rd.
Baltimore, Maryland 21212-2937
USA
+1.410.323.1100
ssummers@truthaboutnursing.org
www.truthaboutnursing.org