KILL the doctors !

The following is a letter I received from my doctor in England. While he doesn't recommend following the title here, it is worth a read.

KILL the Doctors !

"No, I do not think we should do that,
but if we did, would we really miss
them? You may not be aware that
Doctors went on strike this week in
the UK for the first time in 40 years.

Apparently, it's just too hard for
poor UK doctors to get by on a salary
of about $185,000 and they're miffed
that they'll have to work longer
before they can draw their gold-plated
pensions. I know US doctors earn a lot
more still.

It's estimated that up to 1.25 million
prescriptions, tests and operations
were not 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 the UK
healthcare system, it is accepted.
Again in the US the numbers are even
greater because more money is spent
on conventional treatment in the
US than in the UK.

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. "