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Medical care is not healthcare

In his commentary “How S’pore can ride the coming healthcare revolution” (May 14), Dr Jeremy Lim has rightly highlighted the problem of healthcare that is marketed with a fee-for-service payment model.

We do need a healthcare revolution if citizens are to enjoy good health to a ripe old age. TODAY file photo

We do need a healthcare revolution if citizens are to enjoy good health to a ripe old age. TODAY file photo

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Patrick Kee Chin Wah

In his commentary “How S’pore can ride the coming healthcare revolution” (May 14), Dr Jeremy Lim has rightly highlighted the problem of healthcare that is marketed with a fee-for-service payment model.

We do need a healthcare revolution if our citizens are to enjoy good health to a ripe old age.

Dr Lim also pointed out that insurers might become more concerned about improving health and health promotion than about only sickness care.

Unfortunately, if the incomes of medical-care providers are dependent on the sickness behaviour of patients, such providers would 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 must recognise that medical care does not lead to health — it is a misrepresentation to see our medical services as healthcare. Our increasing need for medical care means we are an unhealthy nation.

True health does not lie in the hands of doctors. Indeed, the Ministry of Health should be renamed the Ministry of Medical Services.

The real health ministry lies in the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources, Health Promotion Board, family service centres and all other agencies involved in promoting a healthy 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 humans. 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 its 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 life, 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.

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