Dr Max Mollenkopf, a GP based in Newcastle, has raised an issue he says he sees in his practice “two or three times a day” and he’s had enough.
Dr Mollenkopf is talking about see patients who need a medical certificate to satisfy their employer. He says these patients are sick enough to need a day off work, but not sick enough to really need any treatment.
He says attending to these patients takes time away from patients who actually need treatment.
“I didn’t sign up to do medicine to do HR policy on behalf of large corporations,” Dr Mollenkopf told the ABC.
He’s calling on businesses to stop insisting staff need to get a doctor’s note each time they are sick. While some businesses are stricter on these policies than others, employers are legally within their rights to request proof that an employee was actually sick, particularly if they are paying sick leave.
In the UK, there is a ‘self-certification’ system in which employees do not need to provide documentation of an illness for absences of seven days or less.
Dr Mollenkopf says such a system would free up valuable time for GPs and their patients.
“The people who want to get their 18-month-old in who’s got an ear infection, they’re now having to go to the emergency department or find an urgent care centre or go through all these other steps because there’s an employee sitting there getting a piece of paper to keep their employer happy,” he says.
Do you agree with Dr Mollenkopf? Or do businesses have a right to ask their employees?
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