Weekly Poll: Sick leave policies
When it comes to protecting employees from seasonal flu and influenza A H1N1 this winter, much of attention has focused on vaccinations and proper PPE, including whether to use N95s or surgical masks.
However adjusting sick leave policies to allow employees to stay home if they experience flu symptoms is quickly becoming a major part of healthcare pandemic plans. Federal guidance released this month urges employers to make appropriate adjustments in their employee policies to allow sick healthcare workers to feel comfortable staying home. The CDC also says workers should be sent home if they develop flu symptoms.
On the other hand, a recent survey by the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC) found that 65% of hospitals do not have guaranteed adequate sick leave.
Has your facility addressed this issue? Take our poll and let us know in the comments section below.
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OSHA Healthcare Advisor Poll
The OSHA Healthcare Advisor Poll is our weekly questionnaire that is updated every Monday. It is a great opportunity for you to let us know what is going on at your facility, while also getting a look at what your peers have to say. Every week we will post a new question related to healthcare safety. As always, if you have any burning questions of your own, post them in the comments section below and it could become a featured poll question.
OSHA Healthcare Advisor Poll has written 49 posts.
Comments
We are a continuing care community which includes independent residents, assisted living, & skilled nursing facility. Our policy requires that, if an employee has one or more of the symptoms of an influenza-like illness, he or she must call his/her supervisor. One of our Home Care nurses will call back, assess the employee’s situation, & determine if he/she needs to stay home; usually the answer is “stay home.” It is then recommended the the employee see either their own physician or a healthcare provider at our medical director’s office. Arrangements are made if the employee has financial difficulties with payment. Employees who exhibit flu-like symptoms are sent home with instructions as above.
Why do you want your sick employee to go to their physician’s office or an Urgent care or ED and “spread the wealth” so to speak by exposing everyone in the waiting room? They should simply stay home unless their illness progresses and they begin to have respiratory difficulty, chest pain or other life threatening symptoms.
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