to be angry with friend when it doesn't really affect me

[landsahoy]

My friend is a nurse who works for the NHS, and in the past five years she has been off work over 3 years of that (this includes a year of maternity leave). She has massive chunks off work up to a year but as soon as sick pay runs out she gets miraculously better. Her problems range from intense migraines, rectal and vaginal bleeding to severe back pain and even laryngitis for four weeks. I do think she does suffer from some of these problems but not to the point where she needs to be off work for this length of time anyway. The problems seem to spontaneously clear up after a few months without any real answers to the cause. When we meet up a few times a week when she is off sick I rarely see any signs of problems apart from the odd limp. The time she had the severe migraines which allegedly rendered her debilitated, yet she could still manage to drive a 300 mile round trip every weekend to see relatives.

It is made worse by the fact the GP are willing to give her sick notes. She was given a three month sick note in November so she did not have to stress about work over xmas. Her workplace are being so accommodating it is nauseating and have meetings with her where they bend over backwards to support her.

She often brags about how well off she is and I have calculated she must have cost the NHS over £150,000 when you consider her sick pay and the need to cover her position when she is off. I think I would be well off if I sat at home and collected full pay.

I am almost at the point where I am not bothered if I never see her again.

AIBU

yes you are being very unreasonable. None of your fucking business. Tell her how you feel. Do her a favour. She'd never come near you again. Problem solved

wow somedayma! That's a strong reaction. Why i wonder? (suspects your one who takes unnecessary sickies and so this thread has hit a nerve)

And actually it is her business if her friend is lying about her illnesses and so is stealing money from the nhs, its all of our business.

Apparently, work or play sick leave is going to be stopped for public service employees. Unions are negotiating this at the moment.

Honestly if sick pay was stopped in te NHS the absences would more than half overnight. It's not acceptable on here to say people take the piss but having worked in hospitals for many years and now as the GP asked to sign the sick notes, I can tell you first hand it DOES happen. The NHS generous sick pay And the culture of absenteeism partly fuelled by this is to blame. I've distanced myself from a very close friend (nurse) who thinks nothing of ringing in sick for a week to go on holiday, but is careful not to do it more than 3 times in a year though ...

I read somewhere a consultant saying he was amazed by the recuperative powers of his self emlpoyed patients, compared to his salaried with sick pay ones. Amazing difference, he said.

Ulcerative Colitis can be stress induced. It can cause really quite severe rectal bleeding.
Oh, and maybe she's actually off with stress or depression but didn't want her nosy mare of a 'friend' to know.

You can actually be fired even if you have perfectlly legitimate reasons for being off. The nhs is starting to crack down. They have to do it very carefully to avoid discrimination.

Think that you have to take into account the work that a nhs worker would be undertaking compared to someone in the private sector. For example a nurse or doctor going to work when poorly could have more serious consequences than someone in the private sector- I'm not saying that there wouldn't be consequences in the private sector obviously but that the difference needs to considered.
I work in an emergency reactive service if im in work and not 100% I would be putting people at risk therefore when I am poorly it's for the best that I'm honest about it- I have been off with stress leave before and accused of 'playing the Game' but in my opinion I wasn't well enough for work end of- I'm sure people judged me as I was about to go out and about BUT I was not able to do my job because of how it was affecting me.

We had a similar case on my ward, she was on the old contract which meant you didnt need to build up time for sick leave again. the first day you returned her clock would reset to 6m full pay 6m half.

She was off sick every thurs/fri before annual leave and every mon/tues when she was due back. she was sick every time she was on the rota at christmas.

she would have at least 3 blocks a year off sick ranging from 3 weeks to 8 weeks, a few times in the 6 years i worked with her she had a full 6 month block off sick.

I feel very sorry for her if it was all genuine but at the same time she was so lucky that her ailments meant she was always better before her wages changed to half pay.

Sounds familiar ;( She has not worked a xmas or new year in five years and much of her time off seems to coincide with every school holiday, so she does not have to pay for childminder. She was complaining last week that other staff on ward bitch about her

Wishful, I don't think that's true, generally doctors take very little sick leave and will drag themselves in when feeling worse than the patients. They are on the se sick pay terms as the rest of the NHS but the culture is different. Nurses and admin staff know that if they are off cover is generally found. Not the case for doctors and the expectation is that you do not go off sick.

That's probably true to an extent, I will say that at my work there have been a couple of doctors off but far more nurses and other emergency staff especially with stress.