Three principles of primary healthcare
Satkam Divya, CEO of KlinicApp, shares three principles of primary healthcare: Inter-sectoral collaboration: It is all about realizing that a community’s health and well-being don’t depend solely on effective healthcare services. Governments, organizations, and businesses from varied sectors must be crucial in promoting it. The involvement of all industries in the system can help achieve the goals.
Appropriate use of technology — Using advanced and applicable technology can introduce a turning point and make healthcare services accessible, affordable, and feasible for all.
Accessibility/equitable distribution—The key to ensuring the best primary healthcare strategy is ensuring accessibility and equitable distribution of healthcare services. Advanced and immediate healthcare must reach the needy, and the services must be shared equally among people, irrespective of their ability to bear treatment costs.
Today is World Health Day, and this year’s theme is ‘Universal Health Coverage: Everyone, Everywhere’. Experts discussed the importance of the day and key points in maintaining one’s health.
Dr Gautam Aggarwal, senior consultant of medicine at SPS Hospital, Ludhiana, stressed preventive healthcare and said it should be considered an investment or personal insurance, keeping the retirement nest egg as the return on investment.
He added, “When you are sick, you have no choice but to consider your health. It’s right there in your face – you feel awful. Preventive healthcare must be planned and executed ahead of time, even when the illness is absent. It would help if you build healthy habits even when it’s inconvenient. It would help if you believed maintaining a healthy lifestyle is important enough to make a few sacrifices. Eating right, doing regular exercise, and avoiding destructive substances, such as tobacco, alcohol, and an excessive amount of sugar and salt is crucial, as is getting enough sleep each night.”
He said healthy habits are an ‘automatic’ defense against most illnesses and can provide a long, healthy, and thus happy life.
“Another aspect of preventive healthcare is finding and treating a disease as soon as possible. Some illness hits everyone eventually, but when caught early, many diseases can be nipped in the bud, and full health returns quickly,” Dr Aggarwal added.
Dr SS Sibia, director of Sibia Medical Centre, said, unfortunately, there has been a rise among the young population with cardiovascular diseases. “Major contributing factors that increase the risk include diabetes, hypertension, the habit of smoking, and being overweight. This can be completely attributed to the poor and unhealthy lifestyle with a lack of physical activities,” he said.
“With women empowerment and long, erratic working hours, both men and women are highly susceptible to stress. Poor eating habits, sedentary lifestyle, drinking, and smoking have also contributed to the rise in the number of health ailments. Complications leading to obesity and untimely snacking on junk foods have shown a rising trend of infertility among most corporate couples,” said gynecologist Dr. Bakul Kapoor.
World Health Day was observed at Ludhiana Mediways Hospital. On this occasion, Dr Karmaveer Goyal, director of the internal mediation department, said many diseases occur due to continuous sitting, but they can be avoided by exercise.
He said the best formula to avoid long illness is “Prevention is better than cure”.
