Therefore, it is logical to focus on wellness rather than illness. This demands a huge shift in the mindset of the community, and this is only possible when we prioritize wellness at the community level. Once this transition occurs, our elected representatives and governments will start working on creating an ecosystem that incentivizes wellness over illness.

This move from illness to wellness with be trashed by many as theoretic proposition which will never happen. Sceptics have their place in the society, but society should never be driven by the sceptics who are always in a minority but make more noise. While the benefits of wellness can be appreciated by every single individual and need no explanation, few examples mentioned in this article will reinforce the need the change our outlook from illness towards wellness.

Our economy is heavily dependent on rains. Good rains considered to be a precursor for a healthy economic situation in the country. Prayers for good rains and artificial cloud seeding for rains are not unknown to us. While rains are critical for the well-being of the economy of the country, they result in a huge illness burden on the country. Rains create a perfect environment for mosquitoes to breed, and a variety of viral disease drench the community during the monsoon. This happens year after year, and it has come to a stage where many in the community now believe that it is a part of life. Malaria, dengue, chikungunya and a variety of vector borne diseases have a serious impact on the health of people in the community and impose a huge socio-economic impact on the community. Every year there is a focus on treating the illness caused by vector borne illness, but very little is done to prevent illness. Removing factors that promote breeding of mosquitoes, eliminating mosquitoes and educating the community on implementation of preventive measures are simple solutions but alarmingly ignored. The cost of preventive measures is a fraction of the cost of these vector borne diseases but the individuals, communities and governments continue to spend crores of rupees on treatment every year. Why are elected representatives and governments focusing more on treatment rather than prevention? The answer is simple! The community does not recognize the preventive aspects of vector borne diseases but appreciates any help

that comes their way when they fall sick. If the community mindset changes towards eradication of these vector borne diseases, the incentive for elected representatives and governments will move away from facilitating treatment of illness towards eradication of the diseases. Once the mindset change happens in the community, individuals and parties seeking elected positions would start making commitments on eradicating vector borne disease rather than facilitating the treatment of these diseases.

Illness caused due to the use of tobacco reiterates the need for moving from illness to wellness. Tobacco is the culprit for a variety of cancers and chronic lung conditions. Apart from cosmetic measures like increasing the cost of tobacco products and banning smoking in public areas, not enough has been done to prevent the use of tobacco. Once again, the concern is how to treat once cancer manifests but there is absolutely no disincentive for using tobacco.

Cervical cancer is one of the commonest cancers in women and usually impacts the lower socio-economic sections of the society. Today we have a vaccine which prevents cervical cancer, but only minute proportion of the women in our population are being vaccinated. This is another instance of using preventive measures (vaccination) to prevent illness and keeping our community healthy.

In the current system, there is an incentive only for health insurance companies to prevent illness as a healthy cohort of insured population would use health insurance to a significantly lesser extent. Conversely those who are insured or if someone else (employers, governments etc) is paying for their treatment don’t seem to understand the value for staying healthy. This section of the population feels that they don’t have to pay out of their pockets if they fall sick, so it is not a major problem to fall sick and get treated. Is health insurance or a third party payment system incentive to stay healthy or fall sick?

The recent pandemic is a great example about the whole country working towards a single goal – prevention of illness due to covid. Lockdowns, restrictions to prevent spread of infection, encouraging people to adopt preventive measures, immunization etc have helped in minimizing the impact of covid in India, while even the so-called advanced countries were crippled. Response to the pandemic demonstrates the nation’s ability to work towards prevention of illness. India has the capability of transitioning from illness to wellness and the only way this could happen is a change in the mindset of the community.

Clean water to drink, pollution-free environment, healthy diet, adequate physical activity, simple periodic preventive health checks, immunization (both in children and adults), minimizing health hazards like tobacco, sanitation and most importantly awareness about preventive health will all bring down the burden of disease across the country and costs much lesser than treating the illness that would otherwise occur. This will be wishful thinking unless the community demands wellness rather than free / subsidized / low cost treatment.