Prevention vs. Cure

Long before the advent of Blackberry and iPhone, long before Facebook and Twitter, philosopher Soren Kierkegaard wrote: “Suppose someone invented an instrument, a convenient little talking tube which, say, could be heard over the whole land…I wonder if the police would not forbid it, fearing that the whole country would become mentally deranged if it were used”(1). As a consequence of man’s ingenuity, someone has created more than a “convenient little talking tube”, which has led my beloved country and even the world into technological psychosis. I do not believe, however, that there can ever be formulated a vaccine to eradicate the pandemics of this modern technology because its current existence has been prophesized more than two centuries ago by the sages of old. The only anxiolytic to mitigate the growing uneasiness amidst this whirlwind of gizmos and gadgets is the employment of this same technology for the improvement of the quality of lives of the people – particularly in the fields of medicine and public health.

From a global perspective, there has been greater advancement in the use of technology for the treatment of illnesses than in public awareness of the risk factors of these plagues. Although there has been an explosion of electronic medical records, stents and surgeries of minimum invasion, yet on the other side of the scale, the non-communicable diseases such as heart-related problems, stroke and diabetes mellitus continue to pose a threat to public health. The World Health Organization (WHO) has even called a special meeting last year with policy-makers from around the world in an attempt to curb this lurking shadow on the sector. On the other side of the coin, over the past two decades or so, social networking and the internet have augmented the public’s accessibility to medical-related information, and although this can be viewed as beneficial in some regards, has resulted in another ill in the society: auto-medication. Auto-medication, on reaching its full-term of gestation, has given birth to drug resistance. It is only relevant to mention here that the theme for World Health Day 2011 was aimed at tackling this very growing concern.

So what is the conclusion of the whole matter? The internet, social networking and technology need to focus their energies on prophylactic medicine rather than therapeutic medicine. Government and policy-makers can use service providers of these social networks such as Blackberry to communicate to the “man in the street” about the risk factors of HIV/AIDS, pulmonary cancer among others. On the Guyanese scene, the government should be applauded for its ambitious plan to provide a laptop for every underprivileged family. However, a further step can be taken to use this initiative to send preventative messages and measures to these families, who are usually the ones majorly affected by these health scourges. I think the following saying has some degree of veracity: Prevention is better than cure.   _______________________________________________________________________________   (1) Quoted in Charles Colson, Against the Night: living in new dark ages (Michigan: Servant Publications, 1999), 41. USED WITHOUT PERMISSION.