sick employees

emalon · August 2006

Can an employer request that a visibly sick employee be seen by a doctor and get Cert. of fitness before returning to work?

Brother Bluto · August 2006

What is your concern?

ray a · August 2006

We have people working daily with various ailments. The question is, can they perform their job duties?

Brother Bluto · August 2006

Ray, I was thinking the same thing, but wanted to get more details on the sickness. Common cold, let them stay...something much worse and highly contagious may require a different approach. In the last couple weeks we had one employee get stung by a yellow jacket before he came to work. By the time he had been here about a half hour he was complaining about his face swelling and his throat closing up. I took him to the emergency room. He reported to work the next day and informed me that the treating physician said that he might have died had I not taken the action I did. Oh, and he provided a doctor's note too. Another more recent incident involved an employee that came to work after throwing up blood. The first thought was ulcer. He said that he was going to try to continue working, but later changed his mind and went to the emergency room. They determined it was an ulcer and set up an appointment for him to be seen in a week. It's kind of a case by case basis depending upon the situation. I've come to work coughing and sneezing. I wasn't sent home and the company wasn't going to force me to go home either. One employee was vocal about me spreading my germs, but she complains about everything I do so I didn't really care what she said. I kept in my office and limited my interaction with other employees. keep me posted

emalon · August 2006

The empl. in question has lost a good deal of use of her right arm and can't move it without a great deal of pain, and now apprears to be dragging her foot when walking. This has been evident for at least a year. She refuses to get check out and even her family is concerned. I'm not trying to get rid of her but also do not want an injury on the job to occur due this problem. She is a secretary and the use of her right arm is important.

Brother Bluto · August 2006

Have you asked her why she does not want to seek medical attention?

I don't know what benefits your company offers, so I may be pointing out the obvious...
1. If your company offers Short Term disability pay, then the employee should not have to worry about money.
2. If you company offers FML, she need not worry about loosing her job.
3. She may be concerned about taking permanent disability, which I understand is not a lot of money and she may have trouble making ends meet.
4. If you have an EAP, you might refer her to it so she gets the counsel she needs to address her problem.

You may be tip-toeing on a ADA issue, so be careful. If you recognize her condition as a disability, then it is a disability that you now have to accommodate with in reason.

joycel · August 2006

I'd be taking her to her doctor or clinic (whatever you have there). Not only does that sound serious but it's also impacting her work (so whle she can thank you for your concern but decline medical attention you have the other card to play -- how her problem affects her work.)

mwild31 · August 2006

We did and it had a pretty tragic outcome. We had a long-term employee start to have attendance problems. We started to address the issue and the employee promised to change. There had been rumors about this employee and his dependence on alchohol - but he never mentioned it during our "coaching" meeting. Anyway, in March of this year, I heard the employee coughing again. Not a big deal - he had been coughing quite a bit all winter long. An employee approached me and told me the employee in question looked terrible. I went to the employee and he looked completely horrible. His face was completely jaundiced and he had dark circles under his eyes. He couldn't breathe right and kept coughing. I asked our Plant Manager to verify and he did. As soon as that happened, we made arrangements for the employee to be taken directly to the clinic (he absolutely refused to be taken in an ambulance). He went to the clinic, was immediately admitted into the hospital and died 5 days later of liver failure. I don't regret our decision to send him to the clinic - if you have someone that's sick & looks visbily sick to you and others, send the employee (preferably drive them or call 911). I agree with other posters, however, that if someone has a cold - it's overkill to make them go to the doctor.

NeedCoffee · August 2006

Those are such sad stories! I would be interested in finding out whether you can ask an employee who is able to do their job to leave, go to the doctor, and get a fitness for duty note from the doctor. We have an employee with habitual attendance problems, and we're verging on asking her to get us doctor's notes every time she leaves work for illness - if we ask her to do that, does the company need to pay her co-pays? I have contacted our WC provider, since we're hoping to avoid any possible work-related injuries by having this person checked out by a doctor, but even she wasn't sure on whether the company should pay.

sick employees

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