Austerity Kills

The National Records of Scotland figures show life expectancy for a boy born between 2015 and 2017 is 77 years. For baby girls, it’s 81.1 years. The figures are the worst in the UK and both are down by 0.1 year on the estimates for births during 2014 and 2016.

How on earth can it happen with all our breakthroughs in medicine, science and technology?

There have been particularly high numbers of deaths amid 50 to 74-year-olds over the past few years - the middle-aged and older. Experts say they have detected the change since about 2012. And the last time a similar effect was noticed was in 1983, during the Thatcher years.

So we could hazard an educated guess at what’s happening. This comes in the wake of the most brutal slashing of welfare budgets anyone can remember. We’ve had eight long years of austerity.

Last year, a study by leading academics found there were 45,000 more deaths in the first four years of Tory austerity than would have been expected before the policies were enforced.

Professor Sir Michael Marmot, who has advised the Government on health inequality, said: “My general view is while we have been reluctant to join in and say austerity is killing people, the fact is you can’t keep cutting social services, welfare benefits, adult social care, local government and expect nothing to happen.”

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/austerity-given-scotland-cruelest-cut-13332924