Summary: Today (Feb 3) more than 3000 Hong Kong public hospital staff including doctors and nurses began a 5-day strike with a view to pressing the government to close its border with China to contain the coronavirus epidemic. This may be good news for Hongkongers in the sense that whenever Western-style medical doctors go on strike, death rates go down (in some cases, as much as 50%), according to serious scientific studies published in renowned international academic journals! And according to the Institute of Medicine (1999), medical care was responsible for 44,000-98,000 deaths and more than 1 million injuries annually in America. Further, Robert Mendelsohn, M.D. (1926-1988), former Chairman of the Medical Licensing Committee for the State of Illinois cum Asso. Professor at the University of Illinois School of Medicine, stresses in his world-famous book, Confession of a Medical Heretic, that Western medicine is the gravest threat to human health.
If the government still fails to meet their demands after 4 days, 6000 more, who provide emergency services, will join the strike.
Doctors' strikes => Decrease in Mortality
According to SA Cuningham et. al (2008)'s "Doctors' strikes and mortality", a peer-reviewed article published in the renowned international academic journal Social Science and Medicine (Soc Sci Med), "when health workers go on strike, mortality stays level or decreases" (1). For example, in Israel in 1973, when doctors went on strike for a month, mortality decreased by 50%. In 1976 in Bogota, Columbia, when medical doctors went on strike for 52 days, providing only emergency care for patients, the death rate dropped by 35%. In the same year, the Los Angeles County doctors’ strike resulted in an 18% drop in mortality. As soon as the strike was over, the death rate returned to its usual levels.
Another key example used to support the proposition that fewer doctors means fewer deaths comes from Judy Siegel-Itzkovich's (2000) article "Doctors' strike in Israel may be good for health" which was published in the British Medical Journal and written during the 2000 Israeli strike:- “This month, there were only 93 funerals compared with 153 in May 1999, 133 in the same month in 1998, and 139 in May 1997" (2).
And according to Bhuiyan and Machowski's (2012) article, "Impact of 20-day strike in Polokwane Hospital (18 August - 6 September 2010)", published in South African Medical Journal, "During the 20-day strike...50 deaths were reported throughout the hospital and 8 deaths in the surgical department. During the 20 days of a non-striking period in May 2010...61 deaths were reported throughout the hospital and 12 deaths in the surgical department" (3).
Western Medicine Kills 44,000-98,000 Americans Annually
In 1999, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) published a landmark report To Err is Human on error in healthcare, concluding that medical care was responsible for 44,000-98,000 deaths and more than 1 million injuries annually in the United States. The estimate refers only to preventable errors, and then just in hospitals.
Dr. Mendelsohn: Western Medicine=Greatest Danger to your Health!
The late Robert Mendelsohn, M.D. (1926-1988), while Chairman of the Medical Licensing Committee for the State of Illinois and Associate Professor of Preventive Medicine and Community Health at the University of Illinois School of Medicine, wrote:
. . . the greatest danger to your health is the doctor who practices Modern Medicine. I believe that Modern Medicine's treatments for disease are seldom effective, and that they're often more dangerous than the diseases they're designed to treat . . . I believe that more than 90% of Modern Medicine could disappear from the face of the earth-doctors, hospital, drugs, and equipment-and the effect on our health would be immediate and beneficial.
Pic: RTHK
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