Consultant Psychiatrist advocates heavy taxes on psycho-substances into Country
Emmanuel kehinde,Ilorin
Consultant, Addiction Psychiatrist at the Federal Neuro Psychiatric Hospital, Yaba, Lagos Dr.Olajumoke Koyejo,on Wednesday urged the Federal Government to impose heavy taxes on companies producing and or importing psyco-substances into the country.
Said he: “Higher taxation will make the psycho-substances to be beyond the reach of the purchasing powers of average Nigerians.”
Prof Koyejo, put the prevalence rate of pscho-substance use in Nigeria at 14 percent.
She added that the prevalence is twice higher than the world prevalence of 5.6 percent.
The consultant psychiatrist said this in Ilorin, Kwara state capital at this year’s annual scientific conference and fellows of the Postgraduate Medical College Fellows Association (PMCFA).
She revealed that Lagos state had the highest prevalence of substance use in Nigeria.
“There is also the need for government to plan the environment better for people to have other means of recreation. Sports and others should be encouraged because you cannot take away what they use as a means of recreation (substance) without replacing it with something else.
“The way out the use of substance abuse in Nigeria, for me, is more of prevention. We cannot do prevention without taking the ministry of education into consideration. There are evidence-based ways of handling prevention of substance abuse.”
Earlier in a presentation, entitled “physician well-being and burnout,” Professor of Psychiatry, University of Calabar Teaching Hospital, O Udofia said that “a sick doctor is a dangerous patient.
Prof Udofia said that doctors (consultants) had a responsibility of taking care of them. This is for the sake of patients. This can be done through reduction in our workloads.
“We also have a responsibility to take care of the people working under us. Doctors should deliberately create their own social support system. This is because the work of a doctor comes with a lot of stress.”
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