Prevention is better than cure.” Out of a country’s health budget, a large proportion should be diverted from treatment to spending on health education and preventative measures.

To what extent do you agree or disagree with this statement?

You should use your own ideas, knowledge and experience and support your arguments with examples and relevant evidence.

You should write at least 250 words.

Model Essay 1: (Agreement)
In this world, many people are dying from various types of health related problems due to the lacking of appropriate health education and preventive actions. That is why a government should expend a huge amount of money from health budget for cure-related education as well as preventive measure. It is agreed that this policy has a great number of benefits and this will be proven by analysing economical point of view of a country and the health aspects of people.

Firstly, many regimes spend an enormous amount of money in order to treat their people who are suffering from different types of serious diseases. This extravagance can be easily diminished when state commences of healthcare educational system by spending money to the health teaching system. As an example, if the administration perceives to their slums that smoking, drinking, and so on is bad things for human body through this educational program, many people will be not attacked by the severe sickness. This could save a large amount of money of the state. As can be clearly seen from this illustration that the idea may bring colossal economic benefit to the government.

Secondly, many governments fight against several types of diseases, especially diabetes and the heart diseases. Before these health problems assault the people, it can be ceased by taking some preventive measure. For example, exercise, sports, entertainment etc. can decrease the chances to become these patients. Making parks, playground, and cinema hall can influence people to do exercise, which can protect the people from these intense sicknesses. This can be achieved by investing the money in preventive measures from health budget.

In conclusions, this idea is indispensable not only to the people but also to the governments. However, the tremendous amenities of this policy fortify my argument. Therefore, a government should spend money for health education and preventive measure from health budget.

[ Written by – Ayub Ali ]

Model Answer 2: (Agreement)
It goes without saying that prevention is better than cure. That is why, in recent years, there has been a growing body of opinion in favour of putting more resources into health education and preventive measures. The argument is that ignorance of, for example, basic hygiene or the dangers of an unhealthy diet or lifestyle needs to be combated by special nationwide publicity campaigns, as well as longer-term health education.

Obviously, there is a strong human argument for catching any medical condition as early as possible. There is also an economic argument for doing so. Statistics demonstrate the cost-effectiveness of treating a condition in the early stages, rather than delaying until more expensive and prolonged treatment is necessary. Then there are social or economic costs, perhaps in terms of loss of earnings for the family concerned or unemployed benefit paid by the state.

So far so good, but the difficulties start when we try to define what the ‘proportion’ of the budget “should be, particularly if the funds will be ‘diverted from treatment’. Decisions on exactly how much of the total health budget should be spent in this way ‘ are not a matter for the non-specialist, but should be made on the basis of an accepted health service model.

This is the point at which real problems occur – the formulation of the model. How do we accurately measure which health education campaigns are effective in both medical and financial terms? How do we agree about the medical efficacy of various screening programmes, for example, when the medical establishment itself does not agree? A very rigorous process of evaluation is called for so that we can make an informed decision.

Model Answer 3: (Disagreement)
Present a written argument or case to an educated reader with no specialist knowledge of the following topic.

“Prevention is better than cure.” Out of a country’s health budget, a large proportion should be diverted from treatment to spending on health education and preventative measures.

To what extent do you agree or disagree with this statement?

Sample Answer:
A government has various responsibilities to its citizens, perhaps the most important would be the health care. There are different approaches to this, namely prevention versus cure. This essay will explain why treatment is superior, using the case of tobacco as a clear example.

Firstly, health education has its limits. Over the last twenty years, various western governments have attempted to discourage smokers by placing surgeon’s warnings and revolting pictures. Yet smokers still want to light up, therefore seriously questioning government endeavours of prevention rather than cure. Nevertheless, through the same period cancer treatment has improved considerably even producing beneficial spin-off discoveries for asthma suffers. Therefore treatment is not only more effective, it has also bettered other sectors of society.

Secondly, even if prevention has solid evidence of being effective there is the common case of patients suffering by pure chance. For example, it is known that people can suffer from lung cancer having never smoked anything whereas someone smoking twenty a day can escape such illness. Therefore, even having followed government guidance, there would still be a need for treatment. In addition, if funds had been diverted from research for cures to education there would be little to help ‘chance victims’.

To conclude, all though smoking has addictive elements, drawing from observations over various years it is clear that prevention has failed considerably. Furthermore, treatment can help those afflicted by pure chance, and even benefit patients with related challenges.

[Written by – Ram]