The Quickest and Easiest Way to Preventive Healthcare

 World over, most healthcare systems focus treatment of diseases with little input in prevention and other pillars towards comprehensive health management. This has caused increase in deaths and health care costs continue increasing in ways that are an unsustainable rate. Without mitigation factors in place, this will lead to compromised quality through too little too late.

 

The culture of medical intervention (help because it has happened) must change as a priority to interception (stop before it happens) if this trend is to be reversed. The cost of preventive healthcare is far much lower than of intercepting when disease happens.

 

The question begs then, why there is such high mortality rates due to potentially preventable conditions. This is from the mindset that everyone knows what is good for them. Unfortunately, this is not the case for all people. There are those who take what they believe is good for them. Though it is assumed that everyone has the responsibility to take care of themselves to avoid sickness or injury, they need to be sensitized to what is good and what is bad. Sometimes, one may have the correct information about what is the right way of healthy living but may not access the resources. This is especially dictated by social, economic and environmental.   Some of the causes of preventable diseases that ultimately lead to premature death or years of agony – physical, emotional and economic include smoking, poor diet, alcohol and drug abuse, sedentary life, careless driving (including over speeding, not using seatbelts, not wearing helmets when riding motorcycle), air and water pollution among others. These bring about preventable health issues such as respiratory and lung diseases, heart diseases, some cancers, strokes, diabetes, hypertension, obesity, deformities, paralysis, loss of limbs and some congenital diseases.

 

According to Jayesh Saini, he believes that even though many of these are avoidable by individuals making changes in personal lifestyle behaviors, there should be guided policies and actions towards educated the populace and giving practical solutions to solve the underlying causes of not abiding to these protocols. For example, educating people of what entails a balanced diet should ensure that the information gives examples of affordable foods that make up a balanced diet. This will demystify the notion that balanced diet is a rich man’s meal or that proteins mean meat.

 

Jayesh Saini says that for healthcare providers, the loss of a life especially due to something that is preventable is very devastating. Health providers goal is to treat, prevent loss of organs and prevent death as far as it depends on them. Unlike what many believe, service providers are concerned about lives and not just about profits. Jayesh believes that from a devolved level, the governments should carry out mass education about this issue, even as service providers engage in educating their patients on better lifestyle habits. He is of the opinion that if people changed their lifestyle to healthier living, there would be a reduction of up to 40% of deaths caused by preventable diseases and a further reduction of at least 60% of these diseases if the prevention drives were correctly and continuously carried out. Inevitably, achieving these goals of educating people of better healthy living could prolong the lives of millions across the globe and in the long run, healthcare expenditure would noticeably reduce and performance of individuals and thus the countries would improve from a healthier nation. The resources would then be used to deal with other facets of healthcare such as R&D, upgrading of facilities to cater for the more complex cases including those that have already cropped up due to the aforementioned issues. Jayesh agrees with study findings that if health disparities were eliminated, countries would be closer to achieving the lowest possible death rates for the leading causes of preventable deaths.