During Covid 19 pandemic, people are visibly affected by social media information and are taking steps based on these random advisories. This is seen influencing even policy makers and complicating matters further. This reminds us of Ivan Illich’s warning that societies are slowly moving away from their cultures and are losing out on disease resilience mechanisms. He explained it by the term, cultural iatrogenesis - the destruction of traditional ways of dealing with, and making sense of, death, pain, and sickness. Adverse drug reactions, hospital acquired infections are creating a new paradoxical situation. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), "on any given day, about one in 25 hospital patients has at least one healthcare-associated infection." Thus, post-Covid rehabilitation has become a necessary measure.

Iatrogenesis is the causation of a disease, an harmful complication by any medical activity, including diagnosis, intervention, error, or negligence. Ivan Illich, a social thinker and philosopher, described three types of iatrogenesis: clinical iatrogenesis - direct harm done by various medical treatments; social iatrogenesis - medicalisation of ordinary life; and cultural iatrogenesis - loss of traditional ways of dealing with suffering.

Clinical iatrogenesis is an injury caused to patients by ineffective, toxic, and unsafe treatments. Due to regulatory relaxations with regard to covid clinical practices, telephonic preions and over- the-counter drugs, off-lable drugs, spurious combinations of alternative drugs etc., have all contributed to irrational use and abuse of medicines. People, out of fear and anxiety, used multiple drugs, vitamins, minerals of various combinations, resulting in severe post-covid syndrome. 

The Cultural iatrogenesis refers to the way in which medicine has undermined people's ability to manage their own health, and cope with pain, suffering and death. That has not only created a void interms of coping mechanisms, also it added fear, stress, anxiety and thus made things more complicated. 

The most effective form of social control is not laws, police and jails. Rather, it is the internalization of the moral codes by all members of the society. As children grow up, they normally learn what is proper and what is improper, right and wrong, good and bad. Healthy lifestyle practices, compassion, resilience, compliance of protocols and respect for scientific temper are the most needed raw materials in addressing such long drawn pandemics like Covid-19.   

 

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