MANAGING HEALTH RISK
Still young but already has a chronic disease?
That is what happened to a couple whom I met two days ago. They have 3 children; the father is an executive officer in one of the big governments linked company (GLC) and the mother is also an influential officer in her company.
They received a shocking news about their eldest having a chronic disease while still in his young age. He was diagnosed with diabetes when he was 12 years old. Now, he is already 18 years old and needs to take an injection of insulin every day.
When they received the news, they were speechless and never thought that their son could have such disease when he was still so young. The hereditary factor might be one of the reasons for this to happen.
However, after a series of consultation with a dietician and a pediatrician, they were told that this could be the result of poor and unhealthy eating habit. They found out another shocking confession where the nanny who took care of the kid told them that she was probably responsible in giving the poor kid an uncontrollable, unhealthy eating habits.
Food with high sugar content, chocolates, carbonated drinks were fed to the child almost every day throughout the caregiving period. As a child, this is like having the genie’s wish come true. We can imagine, with this type of lifestyle combined with the hereditary factor, the risk of having that kind of disease will be doubled or tripled.
After their son was diagnosed with the illness, the couple was thinking of acquiring a takaful or insurance medical card for his future dealings. However, every single takaful or insurance company rejected their request.
Nevertheless, they still acquired a minimum takaful protection from their current employment benefits.
As most of us know, these chronic diseases do not happen only to the elderlies but also to children and also not only due to the hereditary genetics.
There was a case of a child as young as 4 years old who was diagnosed to have a type 1 diabetes. No medicine is able to cure this type 1 diabetes so far. The only way to manage it is to control one’s food intake and always be alert with the level of sugar in one’s blood. And the child needs to be injected with insulin every day.
(Source: “Kanak-kanak diabetes umur 4 tahun”, Sinar Harian Online,13 Mac 2019)
As a mother, hearing the story from this couple affected me deeply. It makes me realized how important it is for us to be concerned with our children’s health care.I would like to call out to all parents out there:
- If we need to send our child to a babysitter, make sure we know her lifestyle especially her eating habits. It is better to worry now than be sorry later. If options are in our hand, it is better to send them to nurseries with good caregiving process intact.
- We need to practice good and healthy lifestyle ourselves.
- Most importantly, acquire takaful health plans (medical card) for our children as early as possible (even since babies) to reduce the risks of paying medical costs that increase between 20% to 30% every year. This is because, no matter what age you are, everybody is at risk for their health.
I would really like to further stress the importance of acquiring takaful health plans (medical card). Since, in pursuit of a quality life, it is important for us to live it to the fullest, to take chances and explore every opportunity that come our way.
However, there are some things that are simply not worth risking and that will be our wellbeing a.k.a health. Just imagine the stress that we are likely to face should anything happen to us, health wise, without a proper medical and health insurance.
We should have realized that medical and health takaful covers the cost of private medical treatment, such as the cost of hospitalization and healthcare, if you are diagnosed with certain illnesses or have had an accident. Indeed, knowing that we are sufficiently covered would be assuring not just for us but also for our loved ones.
As mentioned earlier, medical costs have been increasing at a rate of more than 20% every year. While the medical care and treatment at government hospitals are currently very cheap and affordable, most of us usually prefer to seek care from private hospitals, as the service and care are viewed to be better and the waiting time is much shorter. So, with the impossible increase of costs stated, seeking treatment at such facilities may be a little out of reach for some of us.
I would also like to point out about medical coverage that is provided by employers. Most working people make the mistake of thinking that they don’t need to purchase additional health insurance as they think that they are already “covered”.
Little does they know that the coverage provided by the employer is restricted or limited. So, it is a really wise decision to get an additional health takaful to top up any additional costs that may incur.
And what about those who are no longer employed or has retired. How would they guarantee that they will be able to support the costs themselves, should the needs arise in later years? And we are not getting younger nor healthier.
Therefore, once again, it is highly recommended for us to request and acquire the health insurance (preferably offered by takaful) for our own peace of mind. And in takaful, the agents are all ever so willingly to explain and advise us in detail on the kinds of plans suitable to our situation (age and budget).
