Hospital sick leave jumps in Gauteng

23 April 2018

Sick leave applications for staff in Gauteng state hospitals have risen alarmingly, from R161 million paid to 3244 employees in 2014 to R312 million paid to 5882 employees last year.

This is revealed by Gauteng Health MEC Gwen Ramokgopa in a written reply to questions in the Gauteng Legislature.

According to Ramokgopa: “Short temporary incapacity applications are the highest applications applied for, but the Long temporary incapacity leave applications constituted the highest amount paid during the management of incapacity leave in 2017.”

There were 442 cases of long term incapacity in 2017, for which R15.3 million was paid out, compared to 411 cases which cost R1.2 million in 2014.

Ramokgopa says that nurses were the majority of sick leave applications.

I am concerned by the unexplained jump in sick leave by hospital staff. Are staff experiencing increased illness, or is the sick leave system being abused because of poor management?

An investigation is needed into the sick leave increase, particularly with nurses, which could be due to burn-out from working in poor conditions or picking up infections from patients.

There should ideally be a Health Risk Manager to consider sick leave cases in terms of the Policy and Procedure on Incapacity and Ill-health Retirement (PILIR). This would ensure that all sick leave cases are justified, but Ramokgopa says that the Department can’t afford to pay for this post. 

As an interim measure, the Department advises hospitals to have a Multidisciplinary PILIR Committee, but only 12% of cases were referred to such a committee.

Better management of sick leave is needed to prevent abuses and fix the causes of avoidable illness.

Issued by Jack Bloom MPL, DA Gauteng Shadow Health MEC, 23 April 2018