Would you resent me if I was your employee or colleague ?

If colleagues holiday is at easter could you try working in the hospital until then? Even if some of your hours.

It’s understandable. You’re not fit to work. See your GP and ask for a fit note. You need to be well and strong to look after your DC. That’s what matters most.

Also, seek advice (e.g. from a union or Citizens Advice), as you’re unlikely to be able to take long-term sick leave without sick meetings etc. So, you may have to find a way to juggle care and work. Can your DC’s other parent or wider family take responsibility for care too?

Sending you all the best 💐

Oh, that makes it so difficult. I’m so sorry.

This might be completely impossible for a variety of reasons, not least financial, but might there be any possibility of paying someone (e.g. someone with experience of being a carer) to be in the hospital sometimes with your DC? I appreciate this might be a complete non-starter if DC would dislike it.

Take your leave, OP. It's the right thing for you and your family and that's by far the most important thing. But frankly it's also often easier on companies and coworkers to know someone is going to be on leave for a while and set up cover than to have them in and out and (understandably) at a fraction of their usual capacity.

Best wishes you your little one.

Of course she’ll get signed off for a month at at a time! She is sick and undergoing treatment and monitoring from her GP!

And when she is fit, which will likely coincide with her DSs recovery, she’ll be back to work.

HTH

OP, don't do this (cover holiday).

A) It would be very unusual for your employer to allow this. You're either signed off unfit for work or you're not, you can't just dip in and out.

B) If you went ahead with that approach, your colleagues would almost certainly resent you, because it sends the message that you're picking and choosing at will, rather than needing the time off for a valid reason (i.e. if I was them I'd wonder what would have changed during the proposed period that you'd be covering holiday? If you can cover it, why couldn't you work the rest of the time?).

OP, I'd go ahead and get signed off for the period that you require. It will need to be for stress/mental health reasons (but quite frankly, you'll meet that criteria due to having a sick child and being pulled from pillar to post, so a GP is unlikely to refuse).

I've worked for an employer where someone was signed off sick to care for their partner who had cancer (stress was the reason given). We understood and it was absolutely fine.

I was in a similar situation 2 years ago.
My manager told me to get signed off sick and not to worry about work, my GP said "absolutely, you can't work like this".

Oh I do!

I understand HR perfectly well.

The workplace do not even need to know the route cause of the OPs stress, the sick note won’t tell
them that!

The OP is sick with stress.

That’s all they need to know.

Please please tell me you’re not working in HR? If you are get some formal training.

Anyone on here who hasn't spent time being 24/7 at a sick child's bedside in hospital is in no position to say that the OP doesn't qualify for sick leave.
As someone who spent many nights at my disabled child's bedside in hospital I can categorically state that it leaves you in no fit state to function in real life - and the longest I did in one stretch was 3 weeks.
Hospitals very much rely on parents to care, particularly where the child has a disability where the parent is the 'expert'. This involves working a 24 hour shift 7 days a week - overworked as nurses and doctors are, even they get to go off shift sometimes.
At best, you will be given a reclining chair or fold out bed next to your child on the ward. The noise on the ward (and the uncomfortable bed)means you get very little sleep, not to mention having to attend at all hours and being woken up by the night shift at any time because, let's face it, they've got to do their job.
I can remember on the rare occasions I left the hospital, I felt like I'd been dropped into a strange place where I no longer belonged. You become so cut off from the real world that you struggled to function.

OP you have every right to go sick on the basis that your mental and physical health will not allow you to function at work.
The situation with your colleague shows very poor contingency planning by your employer. If you had suddenly taken ill or been involved in an accident and were likely to be off sick, they would have been placed in the same situation. THEY need to sort out how to cover your colleague leave.

I wish you and your child well and hope they find a bd at the specialist hospital soon.

When is your colleague's holiday?

I think you just need to frame it correctly. You are taking time off because of the weight loss, inability to think clearly etc - your stress (as a result of your child's illness and trying to juggle everything, not to care for your child).

It might be better for everyone if you take a week or so now rather than burning out completely.

Could you then ask for a phased return? If doing something else like work is better for your mental health (I think there is some merit in this) then it helps you and might mean you can cover enough for the annual leave.

Edited to say the above is conditional on your child having made some improvements in that time and that I do think you should take time off but that you need to present it as for you, not for caring responsibilities.

We are so conditioned to work that sometimes we don't see what's right in front of us.
Your DC needs you and you aren't functioning.
You need to be off sick. Your employer will have to sort out what to do about your colleagues holiday, maybe get a locum in or cancel her diary for that week.
I hope that things look up for you and your child soon.

Signing off gives an option for a bit of a transition. Collapsing doesn't. We're you my colleague i would understand about the holiday. I might not be pleased with my employer but I would not blame you

I think, if this could go on for months, I would be tempted to see if I could hang on until it was too late for my work to cancel my employee's holiday.

E.g. if they're going on 18th April for 1 week's leave, they would need 15 days notice to cancel it.

So if you could make it to 4th March?

Or the alternative would be to take sick leave now, as it does sound like you're super stressed, but see if things have calmed down enough to be back in a month for the person to take their holiday.

I do agree with all the others though that this is your work's problem for failing to have enough people trained up.

When I worked as a support worker we had a lady go into hospital, we had to take turns doing 24 hour shifts there as the nurses wouldn't do personal care, support her to eat or drink (she was too unwell to do so herself) or support her to the toilet.

They left my aunt sitting in her own shit for an entire day when I was delayed from visiting once.

My heart truly breaks for those without friends, family or support workers to care for them in hospital, it's practically dickensian.

I completely understand it but you don't seem to understand HR. In order to take long term sickness, you need to have a recordable long term sickness which OP doesn't have. All she can do is get signed off with stress a month at a time. HTH.

The OP is sick because of her situation, she is sick!

Again, another person unable to understand that sick leave can be for physical and mental health sickness. 🤦‍♀️

When my Daughter was in hospital I went to the doctors and told them I was stressed and worried that they signed me off monthy until I returned to work.

Would sick leave even be payable in these circumstances? You may be able to get signed off with stress but sick leave because someone else is sick probably wouldn't be given anyway. This would be more parental leave and I understand that won't pay as favourable as sick pay but because it is not OP who is hospitalised with a long term sickness they may not pay out.

Covering you is something your manager has to deal with. It seems odd to have only two people who can do a particular job, what happens if one of you is sick when the other is on leave or if you are both poorly. It doesn't seem very sensible.

Yanbu.
But the colleague shouldn't miss out. It's on management if they can't cope with two people off. Management will have to cope for a couple of weeks.