BY: COLIN GOMEZ

In the past few decades, the Malaysian health ministry has shifted emphasis in healthcare treatment from being curative to preventive medicine on the specious grounds that “prevention is better than cure.”

Let’s face it. With the use of allopathy or Western medicine, most illnesses and diseases are not curable. Since there is no real cure for a large range of illnesses and diseases it is better to check, monitor and regulate it.

This is why it is important to consult a doctor regularly. Having periodic medical check ups, especially if a medical condition has been detected, is important to have it contained and treated so it does not fester and do us more damage.

The shift in emphasis from offering curative services to preventive medicine by the health ministry is a step in the right direction and has received the thumbs up from many medical professionals who see it as an appropriate move.

But patients lament and have misgivings over having to see the doctor regularly, doing follow ups and enduring a long wait for treatment especially in overcrowded and congested public hospitals while finding private healthcare expensive.

Taking preventive measures, however, goes beyond just treatment of illnesses and diseases. It encompasses a whole change in behaviour and lifestyle to ensure that Malaysians stay healthy and be productive and useful all their lives.

-THE MALAYSIA VOICE

** The views expressed on this opinion is of the writer and not the publisher