About half the patients in St James's Hospital, Dublin, particularly in winter, were there because of smoking-related diseases, the Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children was told yesterday.
Prof Luke Clancy, respiratory consultant at the hospital, had been asked about the cost of smoking in terms of healthcare. He estimated the hospital's budget was about £177 million per year, and half the 500 to 600 patients were there because of smoking-linked diseases.
Prof Clancy stressed that these were estimated figures, but they would be typical of most major hospitals, he said.
There was little interest in tackling the problems. Lung cancer was the single commonest fatal malignancy of men and women. Yet there was no clear lung cancer strategy or allocation of money for the medical treatment of the disease, Prof Clancy added.
"There are no resources, and this is because it affects the poor and elderly," Prof Clancy said.
Every year 7,000 people died from smoking-related diseases, but hundreds of thousands more were disabled. They could not walk, could not go up stairs, could not have sex with their partners.
He said 30 per cent of the population, one million people, smoked. A law to ban smoking would not work, and control was all they could look for.
Prof Clancy said everybody had tried so hard in the foot-and-mouth campaign. "We're talking about sheep here. If we can do it for sheep, we can do it for people," he said.
Every day he saw people pouring through the doors of St James's. He did not think they were getting the message about health and smoking.