The employees and students of the State University of Medicine and Pharmaceutics “Nicolae Testemitanu” must obey a new anti-smoking policy of the institution or will be dismissed and expelled. A decision to this effect was taken by the university’s Administration Board. The members of the Board reiterated the idea of banning smoking on the institution’s territory so as to promote a healthy lifestyle and to comply with the directives of the Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization, IPN reports.

According to a communique of the university, one of the measures taken to implement the anti-smoking policy was to create and install “No Smoking” signs in front of the blocks of study, the university clinic, the drugstore, the scientific medical library, in the medical institutions housing the university’s clinics and inside any other university areas.

In the immediate period, the university’s administration plans to set up special places for smokers so that the damage caused to non-smokers is reduced to a minimum.

Some 88% of the respondents of a survey concerning banning of smoking in universities, carried out last year through the university’s portal www.usmf.md, said they support such an initiative.