Modern Day Healthcare: A Boon

Our modern day lives are besieged with a host of lifestyle diseases such as heart attacks, diabetes, hypertension, obesity, thyroid, etc. It is not that these diseases did not plague our previous generations. It is just that the occurrence of these has substantially risen in current times. And the factors for these are not hard to find. A fast-paced life, consumption of junk food, lack of exercise and stress are contributing to the same.

Previously, people did not have stressful jobs; their lives were much simpler. Also, due to the lack of many of the modern day gadgets, they were forced to exercise. Most people travelled by public transport – they walked to the bus stop or the railway station, climbed the foot-over bridge, ran to catch trains or buses. In this process, they managed to get a lot of exercise. Cut to today’s scenario: we step out of the house and have a car waiting right at our doorstep. We feel obliged to join gymnasiums paying huge sums of membership fees but which we hardly ever frequent.

Previously, people did not eat out often. Several factors including stay-at-home women and lower levels of income contributed to the same. Now, people hardly ever eat at home. During the week, due to time constraints, people eat out during the week and, during weekends; people eat out due to socialising. Per se, outside food is not bad; however, it definitely makes a difference compared to home cooked food in terms of the quantities of salt and oil.

Bombarded as we are with such diseases, modern day healthcare has played a huge role in helping us deal with them. In today’s day and age, people have become a lot more aware in terms of identifying these diseases and controlling them to whatever extent possible. Pathological laboratories which primarily do all types of blood tests have sprung up all around. These days people check their blood pressure and sugar levels at home itself without having to step out to the doctor.

Full body check-ups including ECG, EEG, mammography, thyroid levels, etc. are quite common these days. Organizations, too, offer these facilities to their employees as part of their human resources initiatives. This is as far as preventive measures are concerned.

When it comes to curative measures, modern day healthcare has a range of services and facilities to offer. Open heart surgeries, kidney & liver transplants, angioplasties, and the like are conducted as if these are routine operations. Due to state-of-the-art hospitals and medical services, patients, too, are not scared of such operations anymore. Post-operative medical care is also available easily.

The other important aspect of this is the affordability factor. Some years ago, the cost of such surgeries and operations was huge. However, due to the massive R&D undertaken in the country as also the appearance of several hospital chains, the cost factor has undergone a downward revision. Also, with the emergence of various insurance and mediclaim policies, the burden of the surgery is shared between the insurance company and the patient.

This post has been written for IndiBlogger in association with http://www.apollohospitals.com/cutting-edge.php