Mater Dei Hospital, including its extensive grounds will become a smoke free zone on February 20, Health Minister Joe Cassar said this morning.

Addressing a news conference, the minister said three closed smoking shelters will be set up far out on the grounds.

One will be close to university, one close to the employees car park and the third will be close to the Emergency Department but further out.

A legal notice will issued to bring this into effect.

Dr Cassar announced the measure while marking world cancer day, being celebrated today.

He said that this year the government is giving an extra push against smoking, this being one of the biggest causes of cancer.

The minister said that 26 per cent of the men who died in Malta in 2010 and nine per cent of women, had lung cancer.

Smoking was a vice people found very hard to get rid of in spite of the price of cigarettes. But when there was a will there was a way although sometimes people needed to be shocked into realising that they had to stop.

Smoking was also harmful to people who surrounded the smokers, he said adding that the ministry and hospital authorities also offered psycho therapy classes to hospital patients and employees who wanted to stop.

Prof. Stephen Montford, who chairs a health committee that focuses on smoking cessation said passive smoking was affecting Maltese children causing a number of allergies including asthma.

He mentioned a survey carried out by three doctors and distributed among 3,600 employees at Mater Dei.

The survey had a 55 per cent response rate. Around 25 per cent of respondents said they smoked - 10 per cent were doctors and 24 per cent nurses. 45 per cent said they found it very difficult to stop and 75 per cent said they stopped while sick or unwell.

Almost half of the smokers answering the survey said they wanted to stop but only a third said they actually tried doing so. Around 22 per cent said they smoked while on duty.

The legal notice will also mean that one will not be able to smoke while in his car on the hospital grounds.

Staff caught breaking the rules will go through the relevant disciplinary procedures and security officers and the police will impose the ban on the public. The minister appealed to the public to also act as enforcers.