In his commentary "How S'prore can ride the coming healthcare revolution (Today 14th May 2015).
Dr. Jeremy Lim has rightly highlighted the problem of healthcare that is
marketed with a fee-for-service payment
model. We do indeed need a healthcare
revolution if we want our citizens to enjoy good health to a ripe old age.
Dr. Lim had also pointed out that insurers are becoming more concerned about
improving health and health promotion than about only sickness cure.
Unfortunately, if the incomes of medical care providers are dependent on
the sickness behavior of the patients, such providers will tend to pay lip
service to health promotion. In fact, the training of
doctors is directed towards diagnosing and
treating diseases rather than health promotion.
We need to recognize that medical care does
not lead to health - it is a misrepresentation to see our medical
services as health care. Our increasing
need for medical care means that we are an unhealthy nation.
True health does not lie in the hands of doctors. Indeed, the present Ministry of Health
should be renamed the Ministry of Medical Services.
The real Ministry of Health
lies in the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources, Health Promotion Board, the family service centres and all the other agencies involved in promoting ahealthy lifestyle.
The healthcare revolution must also change Singaporeans attitude towards suffering, death and dying. We must overcome our fear of suffering and death, which will come to each of us sooner or later, by
learning to love ourselves and our fellow human beings. Perfect love casts
out fear.
We must make hospice and palliative care the
cornerstone of our medical education and imbue our healthcare providers
with the spirit of hospice care enunciated by the founder, Dame Cicely
Saunders:
“You matter because you are you, and you
matter to the end of your life. We will do all we can not only to help you die
peacefully, but also to live until you die.”
Unless we learn how to die, we cannot truly
live. When we live fully, we will not be afraid of death or
suffering and will not seek to add years to our lives, but rather to add life
to our years.
In doing so, we will bring down the cost of medical care and enjoy good health in our old age.
(Published in Voices, Today, 23 May 2015)
