In a post on Twitter on Sunday, Dr. Nicole Shadbolt said The Ottawa Hospital now requires a note and form to be completed for any staff absent from work due to viral symptoms. “Unnecessary added work for family documents. We are not your disease police,” Dr Shadbolt said in the viral post. The Ottawa Hospital tells Newstalk 580 CFRA that the hospital has requested sick notes after “a certain number of days for a while.” “It allows hospitals to ensure staff are receiving active treatment and helps them support a safe and timely return to work,” TOH spokeswoman Michaela Schreiter said in an email. “I know we extended the number of days to six because of the way that COVID often occurs.”
Our friends at @OttawaHospital are now requesting a note and form completed for any staff absent from work due to virus symptoms. Unnecessary additional work for family documents. We are not your police. — Dr. Nicole Shadbolt (@NShadbolt) July 18, 2022 In response to Dr. Shadbolt’s tweet, emergency department physician Dr. Atul Kapur noted that the Ottawa Hospital has required sick notes from employees for many years. “Including sending a lot of staff to the emergency department for unnecessary extra work,” Kapoor said. Speaking on Newstalk 580 CFRA’s Ottawa Now with Kristy Cameron, Carleton Place family physician Dr. Christine Tie, said that after a break from having to provide doctor’s notes for illnesses during the first two years of the pandemic, doctors are starting to see an increase in requests. “The utility of having family physicians providing the management support to prove that people are unwell for mild viral illnesses for which we are not intervening is questionable,” said Dr. “Having GPs policing sick days to prove someone is unwell when they say something they should be put to bed with a bowl of chicken soup is not that helpful I think. “Family doctors are already extremely overwhelmed by everything else that’s going on in the community.” Dr. Tie says The Ottawa Hospital is not the only large employer now requiring employees to request sick notes for COVID-19 illnesses.
