ABC Radio National this past Monday.
A General practitioner also in the University of WA spoke on this subject.
It will be there on file and worth hearing.
60 Million dollars, that is the figure he put on visits to Doctors for that slip to be paid for? being sick.
That cost is to medi care, us the taxpayers.
It reminded me, I presented a workplace training set entitled absences in the workplace.
That was the RTA some had not taken a day sick in years, with entitlements of 200, 15 a year,some left without using them.
Is it ok the police we trust to protect us must provide Certificates, even if it is know they are sick.
A chemist can, some times do this.
But what of the people living Way out of town too sick to drive in.
Is it ok, that company's insist on us paying for visits to Doctors , or would it be far better to target those with offending history and put some trust in Stat Decs from the rest?

A simple solution - the company should reserve the right to send in an officer to verify that the employee is sick.
(they don't have to actually send someone every time, only if suspicious)

But better yet: no work - no pay!

Take your annual sick-leave in cash to begin with, then if you don't come to work, you don't get paid for that day.
(same as myself, being self-employed, if I'm sick I don't get paid)

The sick-leave is an incentive to lead an unhealthy lifestyle and/or to cheat.

Prejudice in favour of the sick is prejudice against the healthy!

A bit simplistic mate.
But in fact transferring the costs from us to the firm, increasing them in my opinion.
A attendance maximization scheme, thats the latest miss use of the English language used to describe it, is based on these.
Some, not even close to all, think of sick leave as an entitlement , to be used.
And it is, if sick.
Construction firms know it can be managed, and they do.
A working week can be 60 hours just on week days, then 12 on Saturday, maybe Sunday too.
Sickys happen.
So construction workers get 15 a year.
Usually they work from project to project.
They work two or three years then the job ends, they get all left over leave, baring ten days paid out.
The fact is government workers get 15,out door exposed to all weather.
And save in some cases hundreds over a working life that can be 40 or even 50 years.

I am yet to see a system that is not punitive,I understand some offenders need managing, even if it is out of a job.
But a system that lets police officers, or any one,be inspected at home, is sickening.
Punitive systems are driving the sick to take full weeks when a day was enough.
Firms have every right to ask are you sick.
But not to make the public pay for it 60 million dollars could fund better things
Never forget, forcing the sick to work could back fire, as every one be comes ill

But better yet: no work - no pay!
Yuyutsu,
you'd have 65 % of the population starving.

Never neat.

At my work place we can do a couple of day's without a certificate (I think we might need one if it's on a day either side of a public holiday). It's often difficult to get a doctor's appointment on the same day which makes a certificate for every absence messy.

I work with a lot contractors who don't get paid if they don't attend, a disturbing tendency to turn up when sick passing on their bug's to the rest of us.

Some reports I've heard suggest that the cost of passed on viruses in the work place is far higher than the cost of misused sickies. Eg one person over using sick leave is far cheaper than 10 being off sick because one person brought their sickness to the workplace when they should have stayed home.

In a lot of job's there are real risks to not being specifically sick but being over tired or otherwise not on the ball which complicate the issue. Maybe a reason for sick day's being called personal leave
in some places.

I do think that management of those suspected of abusing the system is far better than blanket rules which hurt everyone.

R0bert

belly all crime is sickness
where crime is you can be sure there is a sick mind

thus no docters certificates are fraud
mate were sick of the orders the boss is making

or angry..he got his bonus and i didnt
mate your going hard on the right wing

thats how they do it
bit by bit

them lousy bludgers
how dare they claim sick

well mate they are..!
but the lord masters on the right wing of histry
the inbred blue bloood elites pushing the blue coloured into sickness

mate lol labour party..
is run by the bossman..now

tyou just need to look at their policy[imagration/nukes...no secret ballot..follow the partyy line,,[not consistant conscience voting ALOL THE TIME!

not just when your trying to shaft tony
into a more hard right corner..with an extrem left adgenda

its just too clever by half ol mate

bit by bit
we all went to the right
forgeting to ask,...is this right or wrong"