Ontario to relax rules on sick notes
In another flip-flop, Premier Doug Ford’s government is planning to relax rules on sick notes in a bid to ease the paperwork burden on busy doctors.
The Progressive Conservatives — who have already reversed positions on the Greenbelt and the dissolution of Peel Region — brought back the sick note requirement after the previous Liberal government scrapped it in 2018 as a waste of doctors’ valuable time.
Legislation will soon be proposed to amend the Employment Standards Act so that employers can no longer require staff to get sick notes for the three days of sick leave provided under the law.
But bosses could still require workers to sign an attestation they were ill or to provide a receipt for any over-the-counter medication they purchased.
“These changes are designed to reduce the paperwork burden for sick workers and health-care professionals, while maintaining accountability in the workplace,” said a statement from the office of Labour Minister David Piccini.
Employers would still be entitled to ask for notes for any sick days beyond the minimum of three required under Ontario law.
The Liberals had banned sick notes for the first 10 days of absences a year.
The sick note change and testing the use of artificial intelligence for medical records come amid a doctor shortage that has physicians sounding the alarm they spend almost 20 hours a week on paperwork.
That is time that could be better spent seeing patients, given that 2.3 million Ontarians do not have a family doctor.
The changes are a “step in the right direction,” said Dr. Andrew Park, president of the Ontario Medical Association.
Liberal MPP Adil Shamji, an emergency physician who has also worked in family practice, said the government could make a bigger difference with improved programs aimed at retaining healthcare workers who left the field during and since the gruelling COVID-19 pandemic.
New Democrat MPP France Gelinas said sick notes in most cases are a waste of time, for both patients and for doctors or nurse practitioners.
“To me, the sick note has to go the way of the dinosaur,” she said.