System ‘not allowing sick state staff to retire’

A NEW external health risk management system has resulted in many public servants being denied incapacity leave and early retirement due to ill-health.

External health risk managers were either delaying applications for ill-health retirement or denying them, it emerged during a roundtable discussion hosted by the Public Service Commission with various government departments in Boksburg yesterday.

The commission heard that in some instances, paralysed employees were given other duties although they were not in a position to do the job effectively.

The government introduced the Policy and Procedure on Incapacity Leave and Ill-health Retirement (PILIR) in 2003 to deal with the abuse of the state’s incapacity leave and ill-health retirement benefits.

The policy provides for the appointment of a panel of accredited health risk managers from which departments and provinces contract a health risk manager to receive and process applications and make recommendations to the client departments, which can either accept and implement the recommendations or do a further assessment.

Under the last contract, which ended in December last year, the government was paying R11.41 per employee per month to appointed health risk managers. The state has about 1-million employees who are all potential claimants.

Though the commission says there is a need for the policy, it is concerned with the way it has been implemented. An evaluation report it commissioned in 2011 found that the introduction of the policy had resulted in a reduction in sick leave by public service employees. Since then it has noted legal and practical challenges affecting the way in which the policy is implemented.

“Grievances are mostly from employees on the lower salary grades who cannot afford medical aid and specialised care. Unfortunately, it appears that the public healthcare system lets such employees down by not attending to the PILIR application forms with the necessary professionalism and dedication,” commission chairman Ben Mthembu told delegates.

“The application of PILIR results in instances where employees have to pay back the public service — as employer — substantial amounts due to incapacity leave being converted into leave without pay following the implementation of the health risk manager’s recommendations.”

Commissioner Lulu Sizani said ethical dilemmas were adversely affecting the implementation of the policy. The major one was the doctorpatient relationship — often doctors are reluctant to divulge details about the health of their patients to third parties, which is necessary to process the application.