Essay 31 – Prevention is better than cure

Last Updated: 24th June 2021

GT Writing Task 2 (Essay Writing) Sample # 31

You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.

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?

You should write at least 250 words.

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

Model Answer 1: [Agree]

Countries around the world, except for a few first world countries, are struggling to cope with the soaring costs of medicines and treatments. But, I think that things would have been different if they had emphasized more on health education and preventive measures instead of actually spending so much on “medicines and treatment”. So, I wholeheartedly agree with the statement that a big proportion of the national budget should be diverted from medical treatment to health education and preventative actions.

First, a couple of centuries ago, Cholera was thought to be caused by breathing “miasmas”, and treatment was given to dilute the odours associated with the disease. But, once it was found that some microscopic creatures were actually the main “culprits” which had caused this, along with the other diseases, treatments changed, and sanitation became the chief means of disease prevention. In fact, some health experts today even go to suggest that our human population health owes more to “the idea of proper sanitation” than to all the cures developed before or since!

Secondly, and very interestingly, for most diseases, and for all non-infectious disease, the word “cured” is simply not defined. Besides, there is no scientific or medical test or cure for any non-infectious disease. There is also no test or cure for any so-called “self-resolving” diseases like the common cold, influenza, or measles. Many medical dictionaries do not even contain a definition for the word “cure”! And, I won’t even go to dig into the “fallacy” of the anti-biotic cure because anti-biotic does basically nothing but allowing the living microbes to develop a “resistance” to one anti-biotic after another. So, our lifestyle and knowledge relate to heath does a more prominent work and that’s where our national budget should be spent to get actual results.

To conclude, it is fair to suggest that prevention is far better than cure if we want to use our health budget wisely and have a healthy nation.

Model Answer 2: [Disagree]

Inadequate health education and lack of preventive measures cause unexpected deaths each day across the world while a large percentage of the world population does not get proper treatment. So I do not think that the government should reduce the current treatment budget for prevention measures. That money ought to be diverted from sectors like weaponry and defence.

Many people are bereft of basic knowledge about many fairly common health issues, like cardiovascular diseases, for instance. Most of these diseases can be dramatically decreased if more people are made reasonably knowledgeable about it through disseminating information and public health education programmes. Many countries have already got tangible results from this approach. Besides, many countries have dramatically harnessed the transmission of the COVID-19 because they live-streamed campaigns to provide information on how to contain the transmission of the virus and prompts citizens to maintain social distancing, wash hands frequently with soap and avoid large crowds to reduce chances of catching the virus.

However, although I am steadfast in favour of allocating budget on preventive measures, I do not think that the current treatment should be suffered severe budget cuts. The usual treatment that patients are currently having, is of profound importance. The government ought to slash money from elsewhere. At these unpredictable times, the government still spends a huge amount of money on fatal weapons. If they reduce the minute amount of budget from this sector and divert it into the health budget – both for preventative measures and to treat the ill people, it can bring favourable results. In consequence, this would reduce the number of patients substantially, which in turn, along with preventive measures, ameliorate the health of our nation as a whole.

To recapitulate, millions of people die every year around the world due to the ignorance of preventable illnesses. The government ought to allow a considerable amount of budget on this, but the budget should be allocated from other sectors like weapon production and national defence.

Sample Answer 3: [Agree]

Many avian flu viruses cause outbreak worldwide causing havoc at least once in a few decades. Which is why many people opine that the health budget should be restructured by diverting a considerable amount of money from treatment to health education and preventive actions, which I also accord with because precautionary measures and proper education could have been sufficient to restrict or even prevent many such diseases.

Hundreds of thousands of people are in the grip of the deadly diseases, like COVID-19, for example, which condemn its victims to a terrible condition. With spreading of the outbreak, death toll soars dramatically in mile after mile. Terror, isolation, and claustrophobia haunt as people are forced into quarantine. If countries had more health budgets on educating people and take careful measures, the pandemic could have been restrained in its origin. On top of that, more healthcare research budget could have been a good way to come out with a proper vaccine sooner. Therefore, there is sufficient justification for channelling more funds into public healthcare education and research programmes.

Besides, the uncertain prognosis and treatment demonstrate that the necessity of preventive measures and health education is decisive. In simple words, the clinical spectrum, new diagnostic approach, the necessary information on the transmission mechanism, and the prevention and therapeutic blueprint are yet to develop. But interestingly enough, evidence points to the fact that a healthy lifestyle such as washing hands frequently with soap, having healthy food, social behaviours, regular exercise, and so on, can limit the transmission of the viruses. So, these findings should be disseminated across the world. Thus, health education and preventive measures deserve more money than treatment.

In fine, communicable diseases are spreading like wildfire throughout the earth. So it is sensible enough to conclude that world governments ought to spend more money on preventive measures and public health awareness compared to the treatment budget.