Daycare nannies who look after children in their own home can carry on smoking despite the tightening of anti-smoking legislation.
Although the government has banned smoking in all youth institutions in its revision of the 2007 smoking law, the decision to exempt private childcare has come under fire from the Danish Medical Association. Backed by figures from the National Institute of Public Health, showing that up to 7,000 kids are at risk from being exposed to carcinogens from tobacco smoke, head of the association’s prevention committee, Jette Dam Hansen, called the government’s failure to act ‘irreprehensible’.
“It’s well documented that tobacco smoke leads to cancer so why should small children Be forced to suffer the damaging side-effects of second-hand smoke?” she asked.
The Danish Cancer Society dismissed the minor adjustments to anti-smoking legislation as a step in the right direction but insufficient. Although the agreement between the government and its parliamentary ally, the Red/Green Alliance, imposes a blanket ban on smoking in all institutions for under-18's and provisions for more help for those trying to quit, smoking will be still permitted in pubs and bars under 40 square metres.
Head of the Cancer Society, Leif Vestergaard Pedersen, expressed disappointment that designated smoking rooms and cabins will still be permitted in the workplace.
"It's a well-documented fact that smoking cabins don't stop damaging particles seeping into the surrounding air so many, many people are still going to be exposed to tobacco pollution whilst at work," he said.
Denmark has the highest cancer rates in the world, with about 326 people out of every 100,000 developing cancer each year, according to World Health Organisation (WHO) statistics.