CONNECTIONS to HEALTH

When Doctors Strike, Fewer People Die In 1973 doctors in Israel staged a month-long strike and during that month, mortality fell by 50 percent. A couple of years later, a two-month work stoppage by doctors in the Columbian capital of Bogotá led to a 35-percent decline in deaths. And during a "work slowdown" by doctors in Los Angeles protesting against the sharp increase in premiums for liability insurance, the number of deaths fell by 18 percent. Once doctors were back at work full time, mortality immediately jumped back to the previous level. Every year, 1.2 million Britons are hospitalised as a result of improper medical care. 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. And every year significantly more people die from an infection sustained while in the hospital than as a result of traffic accidents.

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