Health-care v sick-care

The article in The Australian highlights one of the key points to fix the issues with current health system- I would dare say anywhere in the world- that it needs to shift focus from sick-care to health-care.

No doubt we must care for unwell and sick people; however the embedded financial incentives in such sick-care kind of take focus away from health-care. Yes, doctors work hard, they invest ridiculous amount of years in training and carry high-risk and, all this gets reflected in the cost they charge to the patients; like in any other profession or trade.

However, if there are more incentives offered by the system to health-care than sick-care, perhaps the financial investment in health system would be more efficient. i.e. as more and more people stay healthy, the dollar invested in health system would produce better & timely results for the small number of unwell people.

Sounds idealistic?

But there are solutions available.

Ayurveda offers this much needed emphasis on health-care. It is a preventative, holistic medicine system with core principles of ‘Food as Medicine’ and ‘Using body’s innate intelligence’ to keep well.

Ayurveda also offers natural remedies to restore health by helping to overcome disease conditions in body & mind. But as someone wise has said- ‘Prevention is better than cure’, and that’s what Ayurveda stands for.

May be the more discussion is needed to integrate holistic approaches with modern medicine to attain health-care focus.