WHEN DOCTORS GO ON STRIKE LESS PEOPLE DIE...

 INTERESTING READING...DRAW YOUR OWN CONCLUSIONS

"Doctors in the UK are going on strike this week for the first time in 40 years.
Apparently, it's just too hard for poor doctors to get by on a salary of £110,000 and they're miffed that they'll have to work longer before they can draw their gold-plated pensions.
It's estimated that up to 1.25 million prescriptions, tests and operations won't get actioned.
But, every cloud has a silver lining... 
When doctors in Israel took industrial action and went on strike back in 2000, it highlighted a strange phenomenon...
The death rate amongst the local population FELL by nearly 40% over the strike period.
And this is by no means an isolated example...

The same happened in Los Angeles in 1976, which saw an 18% decline in deaths during industrial action by doctors. When the strike ended and the medical machine started to grind back into action, the death rate returned to usual levels.

The same thing in Bogota in 1972. Doctors withdrew all treatments apart from emergency care. And guess what? The mortality rate went down by 35%.
Likewise, back in 1973, Israeli doctors went on strike for 4 weeks and deaths fell by 50% in that month.
It seems history is littered with similar examples, which tell us that the more we can avoid medical intervention in our lives, the more chance we have of living longer and healthier. 

As Dr Robert Mendelsohn, the renowned Chicago MD noted as far back as 1979: "If doctors reduced their involvement with people and only attended emergencies, there's no doubt in my mind that we'd be better off." 
For example, medical errors account for an estimated 40,000 deaths each year in the UK, and have officially become Britain's third biggest killer behind cancer and heart disease.
That's the equivalent to a jumbo jet-full of passengers perishing every week of the year. And yet, because it happens within our healthcare system, we accept it.
In the United States – where 40,000 people are shot to death each year – the chance of getting "killed" by a doctor is three times greater than being killed by a gun. 

In addition, serious reactions to prescription drugs are also believed to be responsible for a further 250,000 Britons being hospitalised each year – with aspirin, diuretics, warfarin and NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs), commonly used for treating such things as arthritis, the main offenders".

(taken from an article by Rachael Linkie, Health Sciences Institute)