Health & Healthcare

What is Health?

In an ever-evolving world, health remains our most precious asset. The pursuit of well-being transcends borders, cultures, and socioeconomic backgrounds. To begin with, let us describe what health is. Generally and simply put, health is the physical well-being of an individual. In as much as this is perfectly true, health transcends more than just physical health. To clarify this, if we borrow the definition by the World Health Organization (WHO), health is broad, in addition to physical well-being, it also encompasses mental, spiritual, social, and even economic well-being.

Now let’s turn our attention to healthcare. What is it? If I were asked to describe what healthcare is, I would break it down into two words making it up, health and care. We have already seen what health is and as such, healthcare would entail activities involved in maintaining health. However, if we use this definition it would mean everything we do is healthcare! Just think about it and leave in the comment section what you think.

For a formal definition, healthcare is primarily medical. The process of seeking to restore physical well-being.

Holistic Approach to Health

We might argue about many things in life but one thing that remains constant is that health is among the most important aspects of our lives. Health as we now know it is holistic. It extends beyond mere physical fitness. It encompasses mental, emotional, and social well-being. A balanced lifestyle, proper nutrition, regular exercise, and adequate sleep contribute to overall health. Mental health awareness is equally vital as it affects our daily lives, relationships, and productivity. Mental health is more or less the underdog here yet it can and should be ranked among the most important aspects of health.

The Aspect of Healthcare (seeking & access)

No one needs to be told why we need good health. The moment you deviate from the normal (healthy state) is when you realize how important it is. That being said, it is unfortunate that we are not always as healthy as we would want to be, sometimes we come down with an illness, dire or minor. At this point we need healthcare and how we seek it depends on several factors one of them being access.

The six-letter word access gives us three main issues in itself:

1.      Physical availability of a health facility

2.      Financial capability to facilitate healthcare

3.      Ability to get to the health facility; this brings in the infrastructure factor and the government gets pulled into the circus. Let’s leave it at that.

Healthcare is a right, on the other hand, healthcare-seeking is a personal choice, and from the meaning of the word choice, we get that you are to decide whether or not you want to seek medical care. This means healthcare-seeking is your own responsibility.

Healthcare-Delivery and Personnel

Think of it like this, when our lover decides to take a little vacation after being taken for granted, we often suffer a great deal. We realize how sorry we are for offending our lover and we often have to try and make up for the mistakes we made, say sorry, and promise to do better. Sometimes we might get lucky and be forgiven but sometimes things may take a swerve for the worst. When things take this turn for the worse, we have to seek help from external parties if we still want to keep the candle burning.

From our little scenario, I know we have already gotten to the point in all this. Nurses, doctors, and other healthcare professionals are the external parties. They are the backbone of healthcare provision. When health takes a vacation, we go to them for reconciliation. Many times they can mend our relationships but for a minority of times they fail, the relationship collapses and we break up.

I know I have used quite a lot of symbolism but I know it makes perfect sense. Health is critical, let’s be critical.

Conclusion

We have talked quite a lot about health and what it entails, however, we have yet to mention how we can maintain good health. Maintain a good relationship with our symbolic lover, the one we can literally not live without. In the next blog, we’ll look at how we can maintain a healthy state, majorly on physical health from which we shall proceed to mental health.

Thank you for reading up to this point. As we part, just think about how much you need your health and how many times you take it for granted.

Tell us in the comment section how you take care of your symbolic lover?