Thursday, August 16, 2012

kill.thatdamnpatient.com

kill.thatdamnpatient.com

Pulling a Sickie …… مرضية – مرضية – مرضية

Posted: 15 Aug 2012 10:07 PM PDT

Story of my fucking life ……

Since I first started at the ministry and to this day the number one reason why people come to see, talk to me and even phone me is by and large for these damn things. It doesn’t matter where I am or what I’m doing;  I know for a fact I’m going to be signing one sick note a week, every week.

Now the fact that I’m writing it is no trouble at all, I don’t mind. What really pisses me off and offends me is how people tend to insult my intelligence and waste my time and my hospitals resources, I’m pretty sure you can come up with 50 excuses and some of them may be realistic  but you don’t need to make up a bunch of symptoms and have me draw blood tests etc. Just tell me that eid is coming up soon and you need a couple of extra days before and after to work on your hangover. Saves you alot of trouble and saves me having to go through this song and dance before you finally fess up to it after growing tired of waiting for your x-ray for 2 hours.

Still it is a little annoying especially when you consider the fact that studies tend to point to the fact that the more sickleaves you have the more the economic impact (especially if you are clinically obese); now granted we do have a surplus but still ….. you’d want to put in an honest days work every now and then for gods sake …. just for fun stay till your work day ends …. even if you’re just playing solitaire.

But at least in Kuwait we’re trying to do something with policies that reduce peoples pay slips and making it harder to get sick leave granted, Norway on the other hand are letting things go willy nilly. A recent Norwegian study  entitled “Phenomena associated with sick leave among primary care patients with Medically Unexplained Physical Symptoms: A systematic review.” seems to try and say that if you come up with a bunch of symptoms and put them together then you’re likely going to get a couple of days off – even more if its an experienced doctor who you trust. Worse still the conclusion the authors came up with seems to advocate for patients with unexplained symptoms suggesting that work conditions may need improvement with more “breaks” and facilities being on of the factors that will reduce sick leave rates.

Having said that I do have to say that work related stress does have a myriad of effects on your health both short and long term and that has been proven time and time again, so maybe we should have a starbucks where everyone works and give everyone free uncensored wifi at work while banning any and all porn and torrent downloads on domestic lines ….. if that doesn’t make the lazy bastards go to work every single fucking day then nothing will……

And although Norwegians will give you a month off for saying that you have had a sudden onset of ear pain along with a limp and an area of numbness just at the edge of your left eye ball, the Swedes will take none of that shit. According to a similar study performed by them entitled “Sick but yet at work. An empirical study of sickness presenteeism.”they claim that although many people will make up stories, those with jobs that require some dedication or some continuity (such as healthcare, or an architectural or advertising project or the teaching of a curriculum) chances are you’ll show up for work even if you were shot in the thigh. Unfortunately they also found that all the Swedes who did show up for work despite being sick ended up making more and more people sick leading to more sick leaves being given out and exponential losses in productivity potential. This was published in their follow-up study entitled “Sickness presenteeism today, sickness absenteeism tomorrow? A prospective study on sickness presenteeism and future sickness absenteeism.”

So I guess the best option is for the patients to start being more honest, or the doctors to loose what remaining friends their arrogance has left them …. but that my dear friends is wishful thinking …..
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