UPROOTING THE LEADING CAUSE OF DEATH

“We will just give him some analgesia and HOPE to see him after 3 months.” These were the words of my attending oncologist during a round through the oncology ward and off we went to the next patient. The old man had prostate cancer that has spread to the spine and left him paralysed from the waist down for more than a year now. Of late he has also been talking irrelevantly. There are many of such patients whose cancer has spread beyond what can be treated. All we could do for him now is just palliative care. Cancer treatment is mainly stage-based and palliation is the last treatment modality for end-stage cancer. Loosely said, it’s basically that nothing can be done to stop the cancer at that stage.
But how did we get here in the first place? Advanced cancer just doesn’t spring up from nowhere. Cancer is a progressive disease and MANY are CURABLE if detected early. Could it be a problem in the healthcare system? Could it be due to the low socio-economic status of our people that makes it hard for them to get to the hospital in time? Or maybe that it just wasn’t noticed early? All these could partly contribute. The greatest of them however is the POOR HEALTH SEEKING BEHAVIOUR we all have. In my OPINION, this is the leading CAUSE of death. Many of us wait until we start to bleed, develop unbearable pain or become unable to walk before we can go to the hospital. (Slight exaggeration). Few of us would go to the hospital just because we have noticed a painless lump under our skin, a change in our bowel habit or more commonly mild pain. We always wait until things get so bad. With this we start to dig our own graves. Few people seek for medical treatment early.

The irony of things however is that most medical conditions have stages or develop over sometime. Generally, the earlier treatment is sort the lower the morbidity or mortality that could arise from the ailment. One method for early detection of disease is a medical check-up whilst you are still in good health. Consistent regular medical check-ups are almost rare in our environment. This is partly because many of us think it’s a shear waste of time to go to the hospital when we are fine. On the other hand, our healthcare system (especially the public healthcare system that most of us can afford) is tailored to a needs-based approach i.e. only focuses on treating already established disease. Few of us can wait in line (especially with other sick persons on the queue) for two hours for a routine medical check-up just in order for us to be reassured that we are okay.
The take home message is that we all need to have a change of mind-set. A need to completely overturn our habits. Seek medical treatment/ advice from a qualified professional early. Many medical conditions have an insidious onset. Only a few that have long term sequelae associated with them present acutely. You should never wait for symptoms to become worse. Make it a habit to have regular medical check-ups while you still enjoy good health so that you can maintain it.



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