You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.
Write about the following topic:
The prevention of health problems and illness is more important than treatment and medicines. Government funding should reflect this. To what extent to you agree or disagree?
Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.
You should write at least 250 words.
Sample Answer
It is sometimes argued that more money should be spent on preventive measures than treatments, as they are of greater importance. However, I would argue that cure and prevention are equally important when it comes to spending money in these areas.
There are several reasons why it can be argued that government should spend money on tackling the causes of diseases. Cost-effectiveness is the key element when placing more importance on these initiatives. By allowing people to have access to these health monitoring strategies, governments can avoid the hefty priced hospitalised treatments or other extravagantly expensive medicines. Take the modified gene coding as an example, the technique of relocating genes in the DNA of human beings can help deliberately avoiding inherited lethal illnesses in newborns such as diabetes. In this way, not only the financial pressure on health care departments can be reduced, but also the painful suffering caused by these contagious sicknesses. Hence, an improved quality of life for those who take these measures is a better alternative. So, if government prioritises preventative approaches as a mandatory element in tackling health problems, people would surely be leading healthy lives in a near future.
I also believe that spending on treatments or medicines has of proportionately equal importance as of managing causes. Some diseases are too fatal that cannot be left without an intensive, holistic and advanced treatment. For instance, carcinogenic patients would have never been recovered with ever greater speed today, if huge state budget were not invested to produce chemotherapy. Similarly, without enough government funds for the best possible treatments to vulnerable patients, people’ life expectancy will be affected devastatingly. So both these departments should be given equal money to keep them going.
In conclusion, governments have to make health reforms properly by investing equally in the cure and prevention of epidemic health illnesses in order to have better outcomes from health deprived people as well as ensuring a healthy and energetic living for them.
[ Written by – Shamaila Afzal ]