Genuine illness or sick joke?

An ISME study found that 83 per cent of sick days off work are due to fake illness

‘WHEN YOU are self-employed, you don’t get to enjoy a sick day. You’re not pulling a fast one on anybody, except yourself. If you choose to stay in bed, there is a lingering sense of guilt. Of course, when you have an employer, or someone to pick up the tab, then ‘pulling a sickie’ becomes second nature to many.”

So says self-employed media producer Aidan Mulcahy, reacting to a recent ISME study which claimed 83 per cent of all sick days taken in this country are due to “feigned illness or malingering”.

The study, following a poll of 750 companies, went on to say the costs to business each year of absenteeism were estimated at €4 billion. ISME claims employees were absent for an average of six days on top of holidays and other authorised absences each year, laying part of the blame at the door of GPs, many of whom were being overly obliging with sick certificates.

The report drew a furious reaction from the Irish Medical Council and prompted an active debate in the days following its release in print and radio, on the attitude of many workers, both public and private sector, to taking sick leave.

The Irish Medical Timescarried a news article focusing on mass absenteeism in the HSE, which results in an average of 13.5 sick days lost per employee per year. In a radio interview, Gary Culliton of the Irish Medical Timessaid, "Chronic absenteeism is blighting the health service and costing the taxpayer hundreds of millions per year."

The accusation is that for Irish workers, sick days are simply additional holidays and that actual illness accounts for a fraction of all sick days taken.

“I was producing a documentary a few years back on Mount Everest and I got really badly sick almost to the point of collapsing,” says Mulcahy. “The doctor told me I was one stage away from hospital. He gave me antibiotics and I was back at work the next day because deadlines were looming and there was no one else to do the work. That shows you how sick you can be, and still go to work.”

ISME’s chief executive Mark Fielding says he is not surprised by the reaction to the report, especially from the medical profession. In fact, it’s exactly the type of reaction ISME hoped for.

“We put the survey out in such a way that we would get that type of reaction. We needed to get the medical profession involved, given that we have had numerous complaints from our members about that profession. For example, one local doctor we’re aware of is known as ‘GP 72’, because he hands out three-day certificates with no questions asked. Another guy in north Co Dublin makes it hard for patients to get sick certificates. Everybody knows it and no one goes near him.”

Fielding says comparative statistics are available in other areas to back up ISME’s claims, such as disability benefit fraud, all pointing to a culture of faking it when it comes to illness in this country.

“Recently, a public accounts committee investigated people with back injury on disability allowance. A total of 1,532 persons in Dublin and Cork on disability as a result of lower back pain were called for medical review. Only 154 were found to qualify for the benefit. So, 90 per cent of claimants were taking money from the Department of Social Welfare under false pretenses. Employers have the same issues.”

Many companies contacted for this article were reluctant to speak on the record about employee absenteeism levels. Several denied they had a problem, while others said such information was internal human resources policy and not for public record.

Ryanair, for example, wouldn’t be drawn on specifics within the company, except to say: “With a chief executive that has not has a sick day in over 20 years we are confident that very few, if any, Ryanair staff ‘fake it’ when it comes to sick leave.”

Mick Mullagh, human resources director with the Irish Dairy Board, which owns the Kerrygold brand and has subsidiaries in Europe and the US, doesn’t believe Irish workers are more or less likely to take sick than their international counterparts. Mullagh says the Irish Dairy Board’s absenteeism figures would be comparable with its international subsidiaries.

“That is partly influenced by the fact that many of our employees in Ireland are in office environments and can still come into work if they are slightly sick. In other countries, if someone has a cold, they are unable to suffer through the day because of working in a food factory. There is an element of skewing the figures because of that, but it does not constitute a significant problem for the Dairy Board,” says Mullagh.

The Dairy Board pays for sick leave and, where an employee displays a pattern of frequent leave, then the company will request that person meets with a company doctor. “We do this to ensure they are getting best medical attention. When someone comes back from sick leave, we don’t have a sit-down with them and discuss their absence. I understand that process of challenging absences exists in other companies, but we don’t have that policy.”

So how has the Dairy Board have kept sickies to a minimum? “There is a mix of reasons, from having a positive work environment to a dedicated and enthusiastic workforce. I have no doubt that absence reflects morale and whereas we wouldn’t say this is an easy place to work, we would still have strong morale among our staff. In other organisations I have worked in, I would have seen situations where weak morale led to absences.”

Mullagh offers the following advice: “If a person is motivated to come into work and if they like their job, then they are going to approach it with an enthusiastic manner. If employers are having difficulty with absenteeism then perhaps they need to look to their own practices – employees, after all, are mirror images of employers.”

Ken Murray owns and manages a Centra supermarket on the north side of Cork city and employs over 20 workers. Murray says he cannot afford to pay employees when they take sick leave. “I wouldn’t know the exact number of people faking sick leave nationally, but I do go along with the fact that people can go to a doctor if they have a slight pain in their elbow or arse and get a sick note. The big one is: ‘I have the flu.’ If you get a proper flu, you’re out for a week and it’s a severe illness. People are running to doctors with a cold and getting sick notes for as long as they want. If I was paying employee’s sick pay here, the problem would be twice as bad.”

Any employer who doubts the veracity of a sick certificate can request that an employee attend an independent company doctor but many employers we spoke to, including Murray, claim nine times out of 10 the company doctor will back up his medical colleagues.

Research out last May found that family doctors find the process of writing a sick note for patients a tricky one. The study was conducted by Michelle Smith, an epidemiologist at the School of Health Science at the Waterford Institute of Technology, who says the traditional aspect of the doctor patient relationship may affect the issue of certification.

Dr Alex Michel, a GP in the mid-west region, says the suggestion that doctors are handing out sick certificates on request lacks credibility. He also calls into question the scientific basis of the ISME study and its accuracy.

“In my experience the majority of people are genuine. False information on behalf of a doctor would damage the credibility of the doctor, and there is no incentive to a doctor to supply false information.”

Dr Michel says several factors are taken into account before a doctor issues a sick certificate: “Symptoms of illness in conjunction with medical history and physical examination are taken into account when deciding to give a sick certificate or not. Then a picture is put together as to whether sick leave is required.”

He agrees, however, that the changing economic times might lead to a noticeably healthier workforce. “Now people are rather afraid to take sick leave due to the fear of losing jobs,” he says.

Odd excuses for missing work

• 'I'm too drunk to drive'
• 'I accidentally flushed my keys down the toilet'
• 'I had to help deliver a baby on my way to work'
• 'I drove through the automatic garage door before it opened'
• 'My boyfriend's snake escaped from its cage and Im afraid to leave the bedroom until he gets home'
• 'God didn't wake me' (Employee didn't believe in alarm clocks and thought a higher power would wake her)
• 'I cut my fingernails too short, they're bleeding and I have to go to the doctor'
• 'The ghosts in my house kept me up all night'
• 'I forgot I was getting married today'
• 'My cow bit me'
• 'My son fell asleep next to wet cement. His foot fell in and we can't get it out'
• 'I fell in a road works hole and hurt myself'

Source: Careerbuilder.com and based on a survey of recruiting managers