News
11 of October of 2021
Livraria Lello asks for prescription of books to promote Mental Health
Open letter sent to deputies of the Portuguese Assembly of Republic defends that book revenue be treated as a health expenditure and measure be included in the 2022 state budget
The administration of Livraria Lello sent an open letter to all parliamentary leaders, calling for books to be subject to medical prescription and taxed as a health expense. "For mental, intellectual and soul well-being, we need what humanity has always needed to be well with itself and, immediately afterwards, to want to go beyond what it is: the Book", reads the letter, where he defends himself, also, the motto: “A Book, for your Health!”.
After the announced end (and felt) of the pandemic, Livraria Lello does not want the moment to mean “the end of looking at the Book as a first-need good”. Recalling that mental health has never been discussed so much as now, the open letter addressed to representatives of the various parties in the Assembly of the Republic underlines that “Books are an irreplaceable foundation of mental health”.
Thus, at a time when ideas for the State Budget for 2022 are being discussed, Livraria Lello “publicly appeals to politicians and the Assembly of the Republic to allow Portuguese doctors to prescribe, whenever they deem it useful for the mental health of their patients, the simple Book”.
In the open letter, the administration of Livraria Lello points to the example of Brussels, which is finalizing the implementation of a measure that will allow doctors to prescribe guided visits to museums, to combat the stress aggravated by covid-19. “Be inspired in Brussels”, appeals the letter, asking that “a” Book can be freely chosen by the patient who is a reader and advised by the real pharmacist who is the Bookseller in that pharmacy that are also the Bookshops”.
"We therefore defend that this revenue can be fiscally treated as a health expense that it effectively is, considering it also as deductible from IRS health expenses and contributing to the acquisition of the Book as a medicine for the soul that is and always has been ”, refers to the open letter.
After UNESCO, the President of the European Commission and several Governments, including the Portuguese Government, having considered the Book as a very essential asset, Livraria Lello recalls the role it also assumed in this regard when, in the midst of the pandemic, it developed actions in this direction, as the world's first Drive-Thru Bookseller in which it offered books and the Tales from Quarantine contest, aimed at unpublished authors from all over the world.
“With the country in a prior period of budget negotiation and voting, Livraria Lello believes that this is an unmissable opportunity for the deputies who represent us to tell citizens how they really care about their mental health, and that the Book, in addition to a good of the very first need, it is also a good of the very first sanity”, concludes the open letter.
In addition to sending this letter to the leaders of the parliamentary groups, the open letter was also sent to various personalities in the area of culture, in order to create a movement in defense of “A Book, for Your Health!”.
After the announced end (and felt) of the pandemic, Livraria Lello does not want the moment to mean “the end of looking at the Book as a first-need good”. Recalling that mental health has never been discussed so much as now, the open letter addressed to representatives of the various parties in the Assembly of the Republic underlines that “Books are an irreplaceable foundation of mental health”.
Thus, at a time when ideas for the State Budget for 2022 are being discussed, Livraria Lello “publicly appeals to politicians and the Assembly of the Republic to allow Portuguese doctors to prescribe, whenever they deem it useful for the mental health of their patients, the simple Book”.
In the open letter, the administration of Livraria Lello points to the example of Brussels, which is finalizing the implementation of a measure that will allow doctors to prescribe guided visits to museums, to combat the stress aggravated by covid-19. “Be inspired in Brussels”, appeals the letter, asking that “a” Book can be freely chosen by the patient who is a reader and advised by the real pharmacist who is the Bookseller in that pharmacy that are also the Bookshops”.
"We therefore defend that this revenue can be fiscally treated as a health expense that it effectively is, considering it also as deductible from IRS health expenses and contributing to the acquisition of the Book as a medicine for the soul that is and always has been ”, refers to the open letter.
After UNESCO, the President of the European Commission and several Governments, including the Portuguese Government, having considered the Book as a very essential asset, Livraria Lello recalls the role it also assumed in this regard when, in the midst of the pandemic, it developed actions in this direction, as the world's first Drive-Thru Bookseller in which it offered books and the Tales from Quarantine contest, aimed at unpublished authors from all over the world.
“With the country in a prior period of budget negotiation and voting, Livraria Lello believes that this is an unmissable opportunity for the deputies who represent us to tell citizens how they really care about their mental health, and that the Book, in addition to a good of the very first need, it is also a good of the very first sanity”, concludes the open letter.
In addition to sending this letter to the leaders of the parliamentary groups, the open letter was also sent to various personalities in the area of culture, in order to create a movement in defense of “A Book, for Your Health!”.
