N.S. doctors want employers to stop asking for sick notes — but the requests keep coming | 24CA News

The affiliation representing Nova Scotia’s medical doctors says physicians are seeing a rise within the variety of requests they’re getting for sick notes, regardless of a request from the province’s chief medical officer of well being to employers to cease utilizing them.

Dr. Robert Strang made the plea at his final briefing in mid-November, saying employers are placing “unnecessary pressure” on the health-care system.

Dr. Leisha Hawker is the president of Doctors Nova Scotia, which represents the province’s 3,500 medical doctors. She mentioned that regardless of Strang’s plea, physicians are nonetheless getting tons of requests to write down the paperwork as COVID, the flu and different viruses unfold by means of the province.

“I’m definitely seeing more requests and hearing it from more of my colleagues as well,” Hawker mentioned. “Employers need to look at other ways to manage their employees and think of other ways to assess their employees’ ability to work.”

Unnecessary exposures to others

Hawker mentioned it is not nearly time, however security.

Sick sufferers must be house resting, however some really feel compelled to work as a result of they know it is going to be a battle to get a word, she mentioned.

“Or they’re going to see their doctor and it’s a busy waiting room where there’s more vulnerable folks like babies, pregnant women and people with cancer and they’re spreading it to others,” she identified.

The dispute over sick notes is hardly new, and isn’t remoted to Nova Scotia.

Hawker at all times replies with a letter that was first designed by Doctors Nova Scotia about 15 years in the past, telling employers to cease the observe. But she mentioned demand is up as soon as once more, “aggravated” by the massive quantity of sickness in the neighborhood.

Hawker is a household doctor who additionally works in a newcomer clinic and the addictions clinic. She mentioned most requests come from her most weak sufferers on the two specialised clinics.

“I think that speaks to the marginalized populations where they’re working jobs where they don’t have that same level of trust from their employers.”

Sick notes are additionally the goal of an effort by the province to enhance working situations for physicians.

The Office of Regulatory Affairs and Service Effectiveness has an inventory of 15 administrative duties positioned on medical doctors that it’s attempting to remove — with sick notes close to the highest.

Leanne Hachey, the manager director, mentioned lowering purple tape might make a substantial distinction to the province’s overtaxed health-care system.

“If 500 employers are doing it, that adds up to a lot of time that we’re asking physicians to spend when they could be spending their time in other, better ways,” she mentioned.

Hachey mentioned chopping again on sick notes may benefit in various alternative ways: it might give medical doctors extra time to spend with different sufferers, it might enhance their work-life steadiness, or it might probably give medical doctors the power to tackle extra sufferers.

She mentioned her workplace’s objective general is to scale back doctor burden by 50,000 hours — the equal of 150,000 affected person visits. In order to measure that, workers in her workplace have used cease watches to time how lengthy it takes physicians to finish every administrative activity, together with writing a sick word.

So far, Hachey mentioned her workplace has satisfied the general public service fee to alter its coverage for notes for incidental diseases, that are people who require just some days off.

“We know in working with the small business community and in talking to them, there are many small employers that no longer request sick notes but there’s still more work to be done.”

‘Struggling with the workload’

Hawker mentioned she will be able to’t estimate what number of notes she writes as a result of it varies week to week. But she mentioned her friends are annoyed after they’re requested to surrender pressing appointment house as a result of employers require notes instantly.

“It took away access to somebody else who might have had another illness like a bladder infection or strep throat,” she mentioned.

“It’s not only COVID, but RSV and influenza are really high right now, and the health-care system, the acute-care systems in particular are really struggling with the workload.”