Ocular drug abuse in Lagos, Nigeria.

Ocular complications as severe as blindness are encountered as a result of drug abuse in the eye patients seen at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Nigeria. They are due to self-administered medications, ignorance, social and economic factors and malpractice. There is an acute need for the Nigerian general practitioners to be trained on the management of ocular problems with demarcation as to when references to the ophthalmologists are imperative. Traditional healers still see a lot of the patients before they come to the hospitals. An understanding between the Western trained doctors and the traditional healers is necessary to curb the unnecessary complications and blindness. Public enlightenment programmes in the national medias should be implemented in order to dissuade patients from self-administration of medications and from consulting the unspecialized.