Primary Healthcare

With increasing success of modern medicine, people started relying on it more and more. For every health problem there is a pill or an injection. Slowly, people have transferred the burden of keeping their health into the hands of doctors. Even the smallest of the things, people are turning towards doctors in the hope of getting a “better” or a “quicker” solution. 

Most of the diseases, especially the infections, must run their course. There is a saying: “treated cold lasts one week and untreated cold lasts seven days”! Seven days seem a long period. People are seeking better cures all the time. There is a limitation to what the medical profession can deliver. Most of the ailments like the viral fevers are self-limiting. We can certainly give something to ease the pain or discomfort, but the disease must take its course. If I ask the patient to take a simple pain killer and wait, they do not like the waiting. They want a new medicine that cures them fast. It is much easier for me to write a prescription and get that patient out of my room than keep on telling that it is a self-limiting disease. 

With the increasing demands, the healthcare industry is coming up with new ideas to satisfy the patient’s psyche. The same multivitamin tablet needs a new name and wrapper, otherwise it does not work!! I am not demeaning the genuine advances in modern healthcare. Tremendous inventions and discoveries were made in all aspects of healthcare, making the life of healthcare professionals easy and better outcomes for the patients. 

My criticism is not about the real diseases and their treatment. It is about the minor issues arising in everyday life and those that can be cured by home remedies or over the counter medicines. With the fear or with the greed of getting better quicker, people are resorting to overuse of antibiotics and various other chemicals in the form of medicated soaps, nutritional supplements. Medicated soaps tend to alter the normal commensal bacteria on the skin. These bacteria are part of our body and help in preventing the disease producing bacteria. It is easy for the companies to come up with a better soap or liquid that can kill all the bacteria and advertise accordingly. They portray all bacteria as bad! Stronger the soap the better!! They do not want to tell you that there are good bacteria that are needed for normal functioning of the body. Some people may need medicated soap, which should be used on the advice of a doctor, preferably a skin specialist. Not based on the advertisement on TV!! 

Have you looked at the contents of the nutritional supplements? Most of them contain a good amount of sugar! Whenever there is some health problem, people are imagining the worst and doing all sort of things based on their fear and panic. Fear and panic are real boon for the healthcare industry! The other side of the coin is people are not trusting doctors because of various misconceptions. 

I am not asking people to neglect their health. All I am saying is to increase the awareness, practice healthy lifestyle and use the medicines and healthcare industry judiciously. If you need a doctor, preferable to have a good physician who you need to use as a family physician. Better not to choose the specialist yourself. Sadly, for various reasons, the concept of family physician and primary healthcare has not developed in India. Let us hope that the future brings better health awareness and healthcare.

I am just venting my ideas and observations. Please let me know your views and experiences. It will help me to get a better understanding of the situation. Take care.