Manitoba looks to end sick notes unless employee absent for 1 week
CBC
Doctors are sick of filing sick notes for minor illnesses — and the Manitoba government is heeding their advice.
The province will introduce legislation to eliminate mandatory sick notes for short-term absences from work, according to a senior government source.
Employers will only be able to request a sick note after seven consecutive calendar days of absence, the official said.
The new legislation, which is expected to be introduced in the upcoming legislative session, will apply to public and private businesses, but not federally-regulated workplaces.
The government is expected to tease the new legislation in the throne speech read by Lt.-Gov. Anita Neville on Tuesday.
Doctors Manitoba president Dr. Nichelle Desilets said she's thrilled by the government's move. She considers sick notes an unnecessary burden for herself and her patients.
“It's not a productive use of an unwell patients’ time, who should be at home resting and recovering, nor of physicians’ time, nor of the taxpayers’ dollars,” Desilets said.
The physician advocacy organization launched its “Sick of Sick Notes” campaign earlier this year to argue eliminating the use of sick notes in cases of short-term illness would add an equivalent of 50 doctors — or 300,000 more patient appointments — annually to an overburdened health-care system still coping with a physician shortage.
At the time, the provincial government said it was considering the proposal.
More than 600,000 sick notes are currently requested annually in the province — many of which aren't medically necessary, Doctors Manitoba said. It estimated the practice costs taxpayers about $8 million per year.
Desilets said in an interview Monday physicians are asked to verify illnesses through sick notes, but that’s not often possible.
“If someone comes to the clinic and tells me that they've been unwell with a gastrointestinal illness, I have no way of confirming that outside of observation,” she said.
“And most of the time people's symptoms, especially flu-like symptoms … are resolved by the time they are well enough to seek care to get the note.”
Desilets said some of her patients are required to present a sick note for a single-day absence, but three days is the most common limit she sees.
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