While there are arguably many aspects to the high cost of health care one area that has to be addressed is the advancements in medicine.
When women had children 50 years ago, the cost was roughly $600 for the hospital stay and delivery. Mother and baby stayed in the hospital for a week. The baby was taken care of in the nursery and the mother was left to lie in bed and recuperate. When she went home she was rested and ready to take on the world again. While the hospital staff was trained the equipment was minimal. No ultrasounds, no fetal monitors, and cesarean sections were rare.
In today's world of modern medicine, a birth takes the equivalent equipment of a rocket launch! There are fetal monitors, heart monitors for mother and baby, oxygen monitors, ultrasounds, cesareans, and epidurals. For a baby born premature the life saving devices are staggering with intubation for breathing and eating, lung development hormones, incubators, and a thousand test including nuclear medicine imaging, and gamma camera to understand the level of development. Having a premature baby can range in the hundreds of thousands of dollar. Why has health care gone up in price? Because expensive technology has advanced.
A baby with severe premature problems struggled to survive 50 years ago, today a baby weighing less than one pound can thrive and go home around his/her original birth date. It is a miracle, but an expensive one. What price is human life? The cost of cancer treatment also runs in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. If it is your mother, your daughter, or your grandfather suffering with cancer, the cost is insignificant. The goal is to get them healthy again.
Advances in technology with gamma cameras and nuclear medicine imagery saves lives, brings proper diagnosis, saves pain and suffering, better informs the surgeons and doctors, but does so at a price. We have to decide if the price is worth the expense.
Infant mortality rate declined by 74 percent between 1960 and 2000. The U.S Department of Health and Human Services sites technological advances for high-risk and obstetrics and neonatal intensive care as the reason for the decline. Infant mortality rate dropped from 26 deaths per 1000 births to just under 7 deaths per thousand births today. Good news for babies, expensive for health care providers. Maybe instead of lamenting the high cost of health care, which it is, we should also celebrate the advancements in technology that gives us longer, healthier lives!
Author Resource:-
BC Technical (http://www.bctechnical.com/) is the leading Molecular Imaging Solution Provider of service, support, refurbished systems and parts for the Nuclear, PET, PET/CT, SPECT, and SPECT/CT market which include gamma camera, gamma camera collimator and new and used nuclear camera.
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