来源: Doctors' strikes and mortality: a review
Doctors' strikes and mortality: a review.
Abstract
A paradoxical pattern has been suggested in the literature on doctors' strikes: when health workers go on strike, mortality stays level or decreases. We performed a review of the literature during the past forty years to assess this paradox. We used PubMed, EconLit and Jstor to locate all peer-reviewed English-language articles presenting data analysis on mortality associated with doctors' strikes. We identified 156 articles, seven of which met our search criteria. The articles analyzed five strikes around the world, all between 1976 and 2003. The strikes lasted between nine days and seventeen weeks. All reported that mortality either stayed the same or decreased during, and in some cases, after the strike. None found that mortality increased during the weeks of the strikes compared to other time periods. The paradoxical finding that physician strikes are associated with reduced mortality may be explained by several factors. Most importantly, elective surgeries are curtailed during strikes. Further, hospitals often re-assign scarce staff and emergency care was available during all of the strikes. Finally, none of the strikes may have lasted long enough to assess the effects of long-term reduced access to a physician. Nonetheless, the literature suggests that reductions in mortality may result from these strikes.该综述分析了1976年至2003年40年间世界各地发生的医生罢工与死亡率之间的关系，罢工持续时间9天至17周，期间总死亡率保持不变或有降低。分析认为虽然影响死亡率的因素是复杂的，但是最重要的原因归于罢工期间择期手术的减少。而且，在罢工期间医院通常保证重症医疗和急诊工作正常进行，是死亡率没有增加的重要原因。虽然，没有任何的罢工持续了足够长的时间用以评估长期缺乏医疗对于死亡率影响，然而，文献分析表明，医生罢工的确与死亡率的降低相关。
