The proprietor of Geri Alimi Hospital, Ilorin, Kwara State, Dr. Amuda Aluko, on Monday urged the federal and state governments to invest more in preventive medicine.

In an interview with PUNCH correspondent, during the inauguration of the Kwara Citizenship Development Initiative (a nongovernmental organisation), Aluko said preventive medicine was more beneficial and cheaper than curative medicine.

He urged the government to enlighten the people more on the importance of good nutrition and maintaining healthy sanitary habits.

Aluko said, "Healthy living starts from nutrition. When somebody is hungry and cannot have three square meals in a day, the person's resistance to diseases will be very low.

"Secondly, curative medicine is very expensive. Most governments tend to neglect preventive medicine, though it is the cheapest and the easiest."

He also appealed to the government to provide social amenities such as potable water.

Aluko, who established the first private hospital in the state, and who has practised medicine for over four decades, lamented that some people contracted water-borne diseases, though availability of potable water would have prevented such.

To reduce such incidents, he said, government should make potable water available.

The physician also advised Nigerians to be conscious of their rights to standard medical care.

"There are lots of illnesses caused by drinking water that are not clean. Money that could have been spent in providing people with water and other basic necessities of life are being spent on building substandard hospitals, with inadequate number of medical personnel or requisite drugs.

"Apart from cancer that is beyond human control, nearly all other illnesses can be controlled. That's why, as a community physician, I urge government to concentrate more on preventive medicine rather than curative medicine," Aluko said.