“Please do something for me, they have thrown me out of the village and they smudged me with black tar. I am an untouchable now “. Mahatma Gandhi quietly listened to this man in his mid 30′s who suffered from the complications of Leprosy. He gave a polite reply “Change is coming, be patient my child.”
I exactly don’t know why I dreamt in first place because I hardly get enough sleep to complete the sleep cycle and second of all why dream about Mahatma Gandhi?
This made me think about the Health care system and the current news.
Leprosy is no longer a big issue in Nepal and elsewhere due to the massive control by antibiotics and wide public awareness campaigns. There are other chronic diseases like Diabetics, Hypertension, and Cancer which have surpassed the infectious diseases. At this trend in the future the only cases that doctors will handle will be complications of these diseases.
Chronic diseases start from early childhood. Your behavior, eating habit and the way you lead your life will eventually hunt you in the future in any form. Weather its Diabetes or Hypertension or Heart disease (More specifically Blood vessel diseases) like Atherosclerosis.
Countries like the USA adopt strategies called Primordial Prevention to tackle this problem. It is the intervention that the health care system does to tackle issues like smoking, obesity, alcohol consumption.
Yesterday and as the days pass by I read about how little children are dying due to the cold wave both in Dhaka and Nepal and I wonder. Why can’t people who plan the health care system project such a future? Why can’t they keep a team ready for such situations?
Let’s come back to the dream that I had. Why don’t we have a Mahatma Gandhi in the health care system? A person who unites the patients and doctors against the health care system that brings this injustice to the lives of many people. At times I wonder why patients disregard doctors when both can mutually benefit from each other and they both can project injustices that happens right under their noses!
Mahatma Gandhi shall always be remembered and I shall never forget the words that he uttered to me “Change is coming, be patient my child!.”
Stay Warm People!
