Pay attention to moral & social illness

Since ancient times, medical profession has been considered as a noble profession, for its members render a valuable service to mankind by preventing, alleviating, controlling or eliminating disease, pain and suffering. So, the members of the profession truly needed to be complimented by the society. However it has been observed off lately that many members of the medical profession in this era of increasing urbanisation and spread of industrial civilisation and technological culture also face the great pressures of materialism and are hardpressed for time. Being always in a hurry and with the object of providing medicine to the largest possible number of patients within the set time-limits, they are now more and more pre-occupied with only the physical well-being of their patients.

Even though they know that most diseases are psychosomatic in their nature and that the the personality-traits and the behavioural pattern of a person also plays a major role in causing stress or trauma or in aggravating the disease, they, for various reasons, do not or cannot pay adequate attention to the social and moral dimensions of health and disease.

The reason for this is because their main attention is on the symptoms and on prescribing suitable medicines. But, if we think deeper, we find that, without controlling, reducing or eliminating the psychic or the behavioural causes, there cannot be any lasting cure of many diseases.

Most of our present-day problems are due to moral and social ill-health of our citizens, most of them generating a chain-re action and contributing peacelessness to the total atmosphere. So, while doctors talk of holistic health, hypertension, psychosomatic diseases, drug addiction or AIDS, we wish that due attention is also paid to the turmoil caused by one’s moral sickness or social illness in the socio-political or socio-economic atmosphere of the society.