A gynecologist Dr. Jehu Appiah has called on doctors to educate their patients on the side effects of drugs they administer to them when they go to the hospitals. Dr. Jehu Appiah who is also head of IPAS GHANA, an NGO involved in educating people on maternal maternity said, it is ethically mandatory for doctors to ensure that patients are made aware of implications of the drugs administered to them, before they are allowed to use them. He told Adom News that some people become jittery when they experience any side effect from drugs given to them by their physicians because, they were not made aware of it. Dr. Jehu Appiah was responding to questions from Adom News following reports in the U.K that some patients have filed a suit in the United Kingdom against a pharmaceutical company, accusing it of turning them into sex addicts after taking some prescribed drugs manufactured by the company. Lawyers for the defendants say the drugs approved for the treatment of Parkinson however resulted in sex addiction, a situation the patients say make them very uncomfortable. But Dr. Jehu Appiah said the doctor-to-patient ratio in Ghana is so huge to the extent that, doctors do not get enough time to counsel their patients as they should have done. He therefore advised doctors not to hide behind the pressure of the volume of cases they attend to, and abandon their basic responsibility of educating the patients about the side effects of drugs they take. Commenting on the use of Viagra, Dr. Jehu Appiah stated that though the drug was originally manufactured for the treatment of heart conditions, it was later found that it has its side effect that could enhance one’s sexual performance. “Some women are also using drugs intended for curing stomach ulcer, for illegal abortions, which can have serious effects on users," he stated. Story by Kwaku Adu Kumi/Adom News/Ghana