to say don't go and get signed off with stress

[writingonthewall]

I see this all the time on MN

OP: there's been a death in the family, I'm doing fine but need time off work to organise the funeral/comfort DH. work will only give me 3 days compassionate leave, after that I have to take holiday or unpaid leave

everyone else: go to your GP and get signed off with stress.

before I get flamed, I am a GP and I fully understand that bereavement hits different people in different ways. I sometimes do sign people off work after a bereavement - if you can't stand up for crying, then you can't work. And whilst there is no hierarchy of grief, as a general rule losing a child is very very traumatic whilst losing a parent is something that you do expect to happen at some point. So no problems with signing certificates for genuine mental health problems post bereavement.

What I do object to is this "get signed off with stress" when you aren't ill.

Do people not realise that, firstly, you are asking the GP to commit fraud. Secondly general practice is buckling. We are under resourced (all practices in one area I know are about to lose 20-25% of their funding) and even if we had the money, there are no GPs to recruit. And it's going to get worse if the new juniors contract doesn't get sorted out.

Every appointment taken up with a medicalisation of normal life, is an appointment that someone who is ill can't have and a potential delay in the diagnosis of someone else's cancer or other serious condition.

so please. see your GP if you are ill - physically or mentally. But think before you do and don't involve us in your battles with your employer and your general normal life events. Being sad after a bereavement is normal. The treatment is to talk about the person you have lost, cry a bit, and take care of yourself. It isn't to rush to the doctor for a medical cure.

Well have a gold star Spidey [hmm

No need for sarcasm, maystar.

*maydancer even.

My issue with the OP is that I belive it will actually stop people who DO need some support from going to see their GP.
The ones that don't care, eg the ones who need a week off to round their holidays in NY, won't care. They'll still go and ask.
But the ones who DO need help, the people with depression, the ones who belive they ought to 'man up' and that 'people who are much worse than you manage so why can't you?' but who still feel dreadfull won't.

I know I have been brushed a few times by HCP. I have been made to feel that I was wasting people's time, I was over reacting. Excpet I wasn't and all the things I was mentioning WERE actually happening (I'm thinking here dc1 allergy to milk and him being unhappy, me having AND and PND etc...). The result is that I now NEVER go to see a GP unless I know what is going with me or the dcs, I know what to ask and I know exactely which words I'm supposed to use to get it.
It means that I struggled for about 8years with ME but didn't seek any help. Well I just needed to stop being lazy and get on with things, didn't I? It's 'just' tiredness isn't it? Only to discover once I arrived to the ME clinic that even when I feel 'well' I still can't do half of what other ME sufferers in the room can do ....

And THAT makes the OP very surprising for me. She stated she is a GP therefore giving her post and her pov a value that it wouldn't get from other posters. She is using her authority as a professional to tell off a group of people but wo any care for another group of patients, the ones that are more likely to NOT go and bother the GP or the ones who will have doubt on whether they should or not go and seek help.
These are not the people who will come and add their story or their pov on this thread. They already feel guilty/ashamed. Some of comments from the OP or other posters (I'm thinking of the ones who say 'man up' or 'you in effect have been stealing from the company by asking for some time off') are likely to have just increased that.

I am glad that the OP has posted and put the perspective of a GP. Next time you have to wait longer than you would like for an appointment with a GP, please remember that it maybe because some people are going to the doctor for a sick note not treatment.

Thanks for the support MrsDeVere.

maydancer-do you often kick people when they're down? Or do you reserve that for people who are struggling to hold it together? And before you ask, yes I've shitloads of experience in this area. I've worked in mental health and learning disability nursing for 30 years and have a great deal of empathy for them. I'm simply trying to put their needs before my own. Apologies for that. On top of that I've had depression on and off since my dad died 20 years ago after going into an acute psychotic state and drinking weedkiller. I've been on citalopram for 6 years since my mum was diagnosed with the cancer that killed her. So when the likes of you come along and amke sarcastic comments about me struggling....well you can take your gold star and shove it where it hurts.

them=my clients.

Only read the first page so apologise if this has been said.

People have to have the stress sick note though or they can't have the time off, and probably can't afford to not be paid at a time which is incurring extra costs. For eg, an elderly parents dies suddenly and as well as sorting out the funeral, you have the other elderly parent to support/move into a care home. You are travelling to another part of the country to do all this. I mean if you are dealing with all that you are going to be stressed, you might not be in bed crying constantly because you have all this to do.

Not all work places can give holiday for this (mine can't, it's a school). You could take unpaid leave I suppose. Many staff at our school have had time off for similar scenarios to that above, I've never known anyone have more than 2 weeks (except the chap who lost a baby). I don't think a week to organise/support family/deal with practicalities/grieve is unreasonable at all to be honest.

Bereaved parent here - agree with issues raised by MrsDV, almond & expat. OP is right - HR/policy issues here are not the same as an actual health need (inc. MH of course, of whatever cause)

No owl it isn't unreasonable at all. But why should it be sick leave? Why does it need to involve the nhs

Well it sort of has to be if employers won't give any paid leave?

That's the whole problem, in a nutshell!

So the OP need to use her professional clout to appeal to employers not kick the grieving who are just doing their best.

OP, YANBU.

What professional clout to you think a GP has over employers, Owlina?

do you think.
Sorry.

Probably not much but I feel she's appealing to the wrong set of people about this issue. The bereaved should nobally forge ahead and employers take no pastoral responsibility for employees' well-being.

That's the attitude currently, not the one I think we should have!

'The bereaved should nobally forge ahead and employers take no pastoral responsibility for employees' well-being.'

I didn't construe to OP or subsequent posts like that at all.

If the bereaved wants to continue to receive a paycheck, yes. Businesses aren't charities.

The sick note is only going to do anyone any good if they have a job that pays full salary when they are off sick but won't give them compassionate leave. In reality the numbers of jobs where you can take long periods of paid sick leave without consequence are very few.

GP's have a professional and legal responsibility to tell the truth.

Regularly signing well people off sick undermines GPs and doesn't do anything to solve the wider problem that some organisations have dysfunctional work practices and that (now that women can no longer be relied upon to quietly get on with all the wife work) we are all likely to have caring responsibilities throughout our lives.

GP's have no more influence on employers than anybody else.

I suppose the question for me is if gps are meant to issue sick notes for people who are bereaved, why should it always be stress. Why not share it out between conditions. A quarter broken legs, a quarter gynaecological issues, a quarter trapped nerve in neck and a quarter stress. Surely that would be fairer.

To be clear - I am not complaining about people being signed uff with stress who are actually suffering from stress.

My post is in response to the "well I can't afford or can't take unpaid leave so what am I supposed to do?" Question.
fine. But some people should pick other conditions at random.

I also don't think the OP showed any lack of empathy. She is very clearly happy to help people who have mental health difficulties as a result of bereavement. She is just pointing out that people who are very sad or very busy and stressed out (which is entirely different to suffering from the clinical condition of stress!) should not be asking to be signed off sick. That isn't unreasonable.

I can understand why the 'parent death being natural' comment has put a few backs up but I wonder if this is a result from the OP having lost her father young. This might just be me projecting but my dad died when I was 22 and he 52. And, as a result, I do find it genuinely difficult to empathise with an extreme grief reaction in someone who loses a 75+ year old parent. Rationally you know that it probably doesn't make much difference and the 40/50 is going to be just as upset as you were. But there's still a bitter niggle going in the back of your mind that they had their parent for the full length of time expected so what are they crying about. Showing thoughts like that is of course awful but I can't believe they are unusual in those who lose parents young. Especially those who lose their parents when they are children.

Having said that, my experience at a workplace where the only real policy seems to be 'be off for the time you really need for any reason but don't take the piss' is that people whose parents die older generally need more time off than I did. My mum and aunt sorted out all the logistics when my dad died. Other colleagues have had to do all that themselves and care for the elderly, often infirm, parent left behind.

I found it very difficult to just sit sadly around the house where he no longer was and ran away back down South to go back to work 3 days after he died in a place where nothing had changed and, when I was busy, I could pretend that nothing had happened. It got me back to work quickly but it was a selfish thing to do. I pretended I wasn't allowed any more time off. But I certainly would have been had I asked.