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Why this GP wants employers to stop asking for medical certificates (www.abc.net.au)

submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

16 comments fedilink hide all child comments

[Dr] Max Mollenkopf estimates he sees two or three patients each day at his GP practice in Mulubinba/Newcastle who don't need treatment but require a medical certificate for work.

For employees, a trip to the doctor for a medical certificate can be time-consuming and costly, especially if your appointment isn’t bulk-billed.

Meanwhile, these appointments can take clinical time from people who are genuinely sick, Dr Mollenkopf says.

"If someone is sick and they want to see me, every day of the week I want them to be able to come in," he says.

"I didn't sign up to do medicine to do HR policy on behalf of large corporations."

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Nah, fuck that. Sick pay is literally built into your contract as an entitlement. If you get it, your yearly salary as presented to you as your employment already accomodates x days sick, same as x days holidays. You can't 'abuse' it, if you run out of sick leave then it comes out of annual, or you don't get paid. There is no rort, it's already part of your farking salary.

[+] [email protected] -7 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Yes, but you are not productive as an employee when unwell. Small business see their customers and employees face to face and for the most part treat them well. Some will fare better by lick as their employees will be less sick. Others will fare worse as they will have more sick employees. For a large company, it comes out in the wash.

What were doing is shifting the risk onto small businesses, which are already struggling to compete. Making it an even playing field is not the same as it being in your contract already. We could nationalize the risk and improve benefits. Its two different things. Its not like we need to have the taxpayer pay. We can already know the average cost and charge that through payroll tax or disability insuranfe which is already b required. So business is no worse off on average, no extra taxes and no fsffing with sock leave.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago

I love hearing managers complain that managing people is difficult. That's your job and it costs what it costs. There's no need to subsidise all businesses.

It's the monopoly of large business that's screwing you, not sick leave.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I do not understand what you are saying here.

You either get paid sick leave as part of your salary entitlements or you do not

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I'm saying the salary entitlement does not have to change, or could change for the better. What could change isnthebsystem where it is employer regulated and managed, including them bearing the risk.

Youre entitled to superannuation too, but it goes to a super fund to manage. Currently if you get sick after starting a new job, youre SOL. If an employer hires an employee that ends up very sick, they are SOL.

It should not be hard to find the average amount of sick leave people use or need and what employers pay. We could also then extend something similar to casual workers who have no such entitlement currently.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

yeah this still isn't making sense in the context of what I said, or Australian labour laws.

literally, all employees in Australia except casual workers are entitled to paid sick and carers leave. That's federal law. It's 10 days for full time workers, pro-rata for part time. So when I say it's already baked into your salary, I literally mean that. They have already calculated for it in your wages.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago

Yes, and I'm saying that calculation does not need to change.

A big chain like woolies could probably predict their worker illness quite accurately.

A small business with 5 employees could have 3 sock at once that ruins their cash flow.

Having that as a shared cost, similar to workers comp where the business pays but the employee benefits would help small businesses. They would have note even cash flow.

I understand how the labour laws work. I'm saying there is scope to improve them and extend them while improving competition. All the while, taking a burden off taxpayers whonpay for medicare and freeing up doctors time.

But, yeah, keep saying its baked in and there is no way we could possibly improve workplace sickness laws. The GPS say its bad already. Workers don't want to go to the doctor when they have a cold. Businesses don't want people pullign a Sickie and most of their colleagues don't want to pick up the slack for workers who are no show.