HEALTH AND DISEASES

HEALTH AND DISEASES
Medical care of any type in our country is free of charge, although there are now many private doctors. We do not pay for

prescriptions of for some medicines. But for other medicines,

especially for those from abroad, we must pay a part of the price and the rest will pay the Insurance Company. The term "free medical care" includes any type of medical treatment - from seeing your doctor because of a common cold to the most complicated operation.

If we fall ill of if we have an accident, we go to the Health Centre, Policlinic, Hospital or to some Private Doctor. Many factories and offices have their own doctors. To improve the situation and promote the competition we can choose our doctors now.

There are various types of medical treatment for our different types of troubles. Doctors may ask you to strip to the waist before he examines your chest and throat. They check our blood pressure, feel the pulse or put our blood or urine through lab-tests to take for example a blood-count. Sometimes they may X-ray our lungs or bones. During our lives we must go through many types of vaccination. Doctors usually prescribe some medicines to us - pills, antibiotics, gargling, eye-wash, sleeping pills, ointments or they tell us to go on a diet.

Each person should undergo a regular check-up at least once a year. However we usually go to see our doctor when we do not feel well or have a temperature.

Dentists may check our teeth and sometimes pull out one of them or drill and fill them. For older people they sometimes fit bridges on their teeth or make dentures. We should go to the dentist twice a year.

There are various types of physicians who treat various diseases and disorders. They are for example GP (general practitioners), dentists, surgeons, interns, oculists, pediatricians, gyneacologists, psychiatrists, dermatologists, ear and throat specialists, orthopedic specialists etc.

We can suffer from various illnesses beginning with common children diseases such as: measles, chicken-pox, mumps, scarlet-fever, otitis. Usually we suffer from common infections such as cold, flu, angina, indigestion, diarrhoea or constipation. In such cases we usually stay in bed, drink herbal teas, take pills, drops or vitamins and after a weak or two we feel well again.

However the situation may sometimes be more serious and needs special treatment in the hospital, e. g. heart attack, appendicitis, breaking na arm or leg, animal or snake bite, severe bleeding, poisoning, unconsciousness or in the case of some real dangerous disease such as tuberculosis, anemia, pneumonia, leukemia, diabetes, hepatitis etc. The doctors care must be very attentive because human life is in danger. It is the same situation with all possible operations and surgeon interferences. After operations, scars remain on our bodies.

It is enough to say that there are still diseases which cannot be cured such as cancer or AIDS.

It is true that prevention is better than a cure. In other words, the best way to cure yourself of a disease is not to catch it. We should try to live a healthy way of life, which means we should have a good proportion of work to leisure time, between our sleep and up time, to keep our mental state in order. We should practice sports, at least swim or go for walks, we should eat healthy food with lots of vitamins, we should not smoke, drink too much alcohol, become drug addicts or change our intimate friends to often. Generally speaking we should lead such a way of life to keep our mind and body in a perfect state and balance.