Some do it because they feel like hibernating under a blanket for a few more hours. Others do it because their children are sick, or they want to do some real good spring cleaning. Others go so far as taking sick leave because they want to paint their house, while the rest take sick leave because they are just that... sick.

After reading your editorial (Sick leave abuse, TMID, 16 June), I felt that I had to comment on the genuine sick leave cases.

These genuine cases are talked about very little, yet they exist. If there was a competition between those people who abused the sick leave system and the doctors who did the same, the latter would win hands down.

Let me explain myself. When someone working in the public sector (I am writing about these because it seems these cheat more often) calls in sick, the doctor comes to ‘visit’. When I say ‘visit’ I mean it literally since the doctor hardly looks at the patient’s face, let alone checks to see what is ailing him or her. As a matter of fact, I wonder why it is a doctor who comes to check if the patient is at home, it could be any Tom, Dick or Harry for there is no examination of the person’s state of health whatsoever.

I find it appalling how these wise guys make it so obvious that they do not give a hoot about the patient, all they care about is whether the public sector worker is out painting the town red or really has some sort of malady. If they don’t adhere to the ostrich view by issuing a certificate on the spot, they are either looking you up and down as if expecting you to kick the bucket at any moment or else they are in too much of a hurry to notice whether you are looking much yellower than cheddar cheese. They do not really take the trouble to find out, do they?

If you ask me, if there is a problem with the astounding 126,000 sick leave claims, a 20,000 increase over 1997 – the fault lies with the quacks who do not take the trouble to find out if the absent worker is really ill or not. Why don’t they behave in a proper fashion and examine the ‘patients’ instead of being hurried FBI investigators? MAM has a duty to ask the so called doctors to examine the sick worker.

All this talk about the sick leave abuse is all very fine, but isn’t there another side to the coin? What about the real ailing patient who would rather have his illness attended to than being treated like an irritating fly? Sick leave is brought about because there are few doctors who really do their job and that is finding out whether the worker is really sick or not. When those in the medical profession do their job well, sick leave abuse will not be as high as it is today.

VALERIE BORG

PL councillor