A Mysuru-based popular and committed promoter of wellness of citizens, irrespective of their social identities in society, has come out with a new slogan, read philosophy, in place of the time-honoured advisory “Prevention is better than cure.” His message, delivered with unalloyed conviction, free from high-sounding rhetoric, before audiences drawn to events in the city featuring  him as the principal speaker, like bees to flowers profuse with nectar, is hard to be erased from one’s memory after listening. The invaluable message, evolved personally through years of living a self-disciplined life reads: “Prevention is the only cure.” His campaign to raise the citizen’s wellness to higher ranges by delivering talks from various platforms gets  further boost through his monthly bulletins electronically circulated to a wide circle of his captive admirers, the effort being self-propelled with own resources.

Excluding the cases of those unfortunate ones born with one or the other debilitating and life-threatening diseases and disorders, it behoves those gifted with robust health to zealously safeguard that gift with greatest vigil and care. A knowledgeable observer of the intimate connect between wellness and the host of factors, principally food and living conditions, has rightly said that “Life begins at 40 and starts showing.”

People at large owe a deep debt of gratitude to both known and anonymous pioneers who have created a virtually boundless cornucopia of knowledge, tools and medicines to diagnose and cure the relentlessly growing number of disorders and diseases. We owe no less thankfulness to the medical practitioners to whom we have no option but to run for timely help. Anyone with an abruptly showing up tooth ache cannot but appreciate the work of the skilled dentist at the time of distress. The wailing in public domain about the exorbitant costs of consulting specialists in different branches of medicine, hospitalisation and medicines is well-taken, although it doesn’t take away the importance of one’s responsibility not to get into that whirl of suffering from diseases and seeking relief at unaffordable costs.

In the backdrop of the foregoing lengthy preamble, in a reversal of action as it were, physicians have been handed down two prescriptions by two different parties. One is the government asking the doctors to prescribe generic drugs and the patients pleading to be heard patiently. The doctor fraternity may not favour the about-to-be enacted law but may empathise with their patients on their plea.