Man - The Game Changer Of His Own Health (Dedicated To World Health Day) Poem by Bernedita Rosinha Pinto

Many in hospitals sleep
waiting for their last breath to cease
to release them from their sufferings,
some wait with hopes
of walking out from the hospital
with a new lease to their life
as they undergo surgeries,
as they undergo treatment
till they are healed and cured
and stable to walk and jump again;
and as they get ready to go home
they never hope to come and sleep
on that hospital bed again.
Who can forget those faces
of those who have died in the next bed
while in a common ward they slept?
Who can forget those who still sleep there
and face their sufferings with grit
while some helplessly await their end;
yet life does not change its game
as doctors and nurses strive and struggle
to care and releive those who ail and suffer
for none want to realize or control
the illnesses that can be best prevented:
as the one who speeds will never drive slow
to avoid accidents of injuring others or himself,
the one who smokes and drinks
will never stop to quit his pleasures,
the one who murders, stabs or hurts
will never stop his crimes
and thus will men face the consequences
of sickness, malady and death
as those who are cast with dread
are those who have terminal illnesses
and though everyone cannot control fate and sufferings
and though man forgets his health is his true wealth
man is the sole game-changer of his own health.