Most people think doctors, hospitals, and medicines exist to keep us healthy. But if that’s true, why are more people falling sick despite all the medical advances, wellness centres, and promotion of indigenous systems? Why are diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart problems growing at such a fast rate?
Dr. P K. Sasidharan, a doctor, researcher, and writer, has spent years studying these issues. His new book HEAL-THY WORLD asks if our healthcare system is built to look after public health and wellness of individuals in a scientific manner, or is it just to manage illness alone using only the hi-tech centres and indigenous systems in a way that keeps businesses running.
The Harsh Reality of Modern and indigenous Healthcare
Dr. Sasidharan believes that the health system, especially in India, is more focused on treating diseases rather than stopping them before they happen. Even the treatment of diseases happens in a fragmented and disordered manner, or using unscientific practices. Instead of promoting public health, making available all the social determinants of health to every individual, empowering people by social security and human development, and teaching people how to stay healthy, and reducing the disease burden, the system now makes them depend on costly medicines or makes them depend on unscientific treatments only.
“Most diseases today can be avoided, and we can build a healthy society with very low disease burden,” he says. “But no one talks about genuine prevention by social interventions, because it doesn’t make money.”
Here’s why he says this:
- Too Many facilities and systems for treatments, Too Little Prevention – Instead of fixing the root causes of illness in society, we rely on medicines only to control the symptoms.
- No Focus on Food and Lifestyle – Doctors rarely stress the importance of good eating habits, physical exercise, and stress management, even though these are the best ways to stay healthy. To enable people to practise all these, social empowerment by strong policies and implementation of policies by dedicated medical practitioners is the key.
- We fail to bring out genuine modern medicine doctors who could be champions of public health and practise medicine as multi-specialists in the community setting.
- Due to neglect of public health, the disease burden is increasing disproportionately to population growth
- We deliberately neglect public health, and we increase the disease burden and then centralise disease care by bringing out more organ specialists, building more and more tertiary care hospitals, or bringing out more AYUSH doctors in primary care.
- Public health in India is a neglected orphan now- we do not identify the genuine causes and go after fixing the issues in public health and social determinants of health
- Healthcare is Business-Driven – The medical industry (both modern and indigenous) makes more profit when people keep needing more and more treatments instead of preventing the diseases
What Can We Do to Change This?
Dr. Sasidharan doesn’t just point out problems—he also talks about solutions. He believes that we need better awareness of the social and individual aspects of health care and the necessary policy changes.
- Health Education Must Improve
Governments need to focus more and spend more on teaching people and empowering them to live healthy lives. With good primary school teachers, large numbers of good primary care doctors, and necessary policy changes, we can focus on Homes, Schools, workplaces, and public places, rather than a few individuals, to promote healthy habits that prevent diseases.
- General Practitioner doctors/family doctors- Should be the First Choice for all individuals
The best doctors should be going into family practice/general practice. Instead of rushing to specialists, people should have access to trained general practitioner doctors who can guide them on staying healthy and avoiding unnecessary investigations or medicines.
- By policy changes there should be more Focus on awareness on balanced diet, waste management, providing public places like footpaths, cycle paths and play grounds for exercise in the open, creating facilities for accessing balanced nutrition, training for stress management etc – which all would prevent several diseases and could also accelerate the process of recovery from illnesses
There should be more awareness, provided by good primary care doctors, about how food, physical activity, and stress management help in preventing sickness.
- Stop Greed in Healthcare- more doctors should be joining primary care and the government sector
Increasing privatisation and the unnecessary focus on single-system specialisation made doctors spend huge money to get the qualifications and to set up their private practice; these then forced doctors unknowingly to focus on making more money to pay off the huge debts incurred. Dr. Sasidharan believes that medical care should be based on science and ethics, not on business goals. People should not be made to do tests on their own, and they should be guided by a friend, philosopher, and guide kind of doctors who would look after health and wellness, make early diagnosis of diseases, and provide cost-effective treatment in a community setting without unnecessary laboratory tests or costly treatments. Hospital visits and admissions should be reduced by good public health, reduced disease burden, and effective primary health care.
A Doctor Who Speaks the Truth
Dr. Sasidharan has spent over 40 years working in medicine, teaching, researching, and treating patients. He was the first person to report Vitamin D deficiency as a huge public health problem, and had done original studies on B12 deficiency in India. He introduced important medical ideas like the “Kozhikode Criteria” for diagnosing Lupus. He has also written many books, including Doctors’ Pocket Companion and Healthy India, to help both doctors and the public understand healthcare better.
His latest book, HEAL-THY WORLD, explains how today’s medical system works, its pitfalls what systemic changes are needed to make people take charge of their own health.
If you have ever felt that the healthcare system is doing more to manage illness than to truly heal people, you are not alone. Dr. Sasidharan’s work explains the hidden problems in medicine and shows how things can change. But the real question is—are we ready to demand better healthcare?
It’s time to stop depending on a system that profits from sickness and start taking care of our own health and contribute our share to public health.
Dr. Sasidharan regularly shares insights about health, wellness, and medical ethics on social media. Follow him for honest discussions on how to take charge of your health.
Twitter: @pksdharan
Facebook: Sasidharan PK
