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.

The OP states that her father died and yet her most discussed example of grief refers to the loss of a dog.
I am wondering OP if you did not react as strongly to the death of your parent as some do?
I lost my father 14 months ago. He was ill, he was old, it was expected. I was, and am, still shattered by grief. It has caused physical illnesses (shingles, anxiety, IBS) and in total I was given 3 days of compassionate leave and one day for the funeral. After four weeks back at work I found myself sobbing to the chaplain, unable to function properly. Fortunately my GP was my father's GP and she had spent so much time with us close to the death that she fully understood my grief.

And dare I say it , colleaugues have ben known to take time off sick for a pet bereavement or if their pet is very poorly, usually just a few days though.

My Dad died last year and yes I did go to my GP to be signed off, as per my managers advice.

My Dad was in a hospice and I had the call to say come in now it is time, he then held on for a further 10 days.

I could not bear to not remain by his side, I also needed to be there for my Mum, there is no way I would have been in a fit state to work in that time.

If I could have taken it off as holiday then I probably would have done, but working in a school that was not an option for me.

It isn't clear to me what OP is saying tbh. Being signed off for grief is okay, apart from when it isn't.

I think OP may just feeling very fed up. Prob with good cause, but her posts are a little inflammatory.

I've gone back to work on the afternoon of having my beloved dog put to sleep and had to have the odd break between patients to have a bit of a cry. Don't you dare say that I don't understand grief.

Do you realise how offensive this is to compare the loss of a somebody's mother to your bloody animal! I don't think you are cut out for general practice.

In all fairness, Countess, if you are not assailed daily with requests for sick notes it is easy for you to support the idea of people taking all of the time they need. You are not being asked to legitimize it.

Foolsandjesters I completely agree, I think having 4-6 months off, paid, following the death of a parent, is quite ridiculous. I know that sounds harsh, but really. Festering at home for 6 months isn't going to help you. And to be honest, when I read that it's an NHS unit, I just think, "But of course it is." I really feel that if you feel you really are incapable of work, you should resign.

I am not an animal person myself but some people do develop very deep relationships with animals and grieve mightily for them when they are gone.

I don't understand why people are coming on to say they were stressed after a parent died and so took time off. If you're ill take time off sick. No one is disputing that.

"If you feel,you are incapable of work you should just resign"

Charming. People get ill for long periods of time, but you know, they do recover

the death of a parent often isnt just about your grief though.. it can take ages to arrange the funeral, clear up all their affairs, support the people left behind.

much of my time off after my dad passed away was about supporting my mum who was on her own for the first time in 45 years and had no idea how to deal with HER grief, and being with her through all the funeral arrangements, fielding the post, sorting her finances and helping her set up her life as a widow.

TBH, i didnt get time to grieve. I ended up taking 3 months off work later in the year as i fell completely to pieces once i'd got her to the point she wasn't going to shred the moment i stepped away.

Babyroobs I think people should take unpaid leave off when pets die. I know that people can be desperately sad when loved pets die but I don't think it's appropriate for the NHS to pick up the bill.

The 4-6 months normal bereavement leave is outrageous.

The larger issue is that this has gotten dumped in the lap of GPs. How is a GP supposed to judge if a person's grief warrants two weeks or six months off? The GP can go by what the person tells him/her, but that only works in a society where people are 100% honest.

So a GP has a choice of being a "sympathetic" GP, who will no doubt get taken advantage of, or a strict "uncaring" GP, who will be criticized as cruel and unfeeling.

It seems like it would be very difficult to walk that middle path.

I think another important factor is how stressful a person finds their work. If they are well settled in stable employment where they are generally well supported by management and colleagues, and which is well within their capability, then going back to work will be much more straight-forward than the far from ideal employment situations many of us have often found ourselves in.

Sailaway - I tend to agree, but as I said earlier the reason people are allowed so long off is that in my job we have to deal with patients at the end of their life. There's no point someone returning to their job a couple of weeks after a close bereavement and ending up in tears dealing with the relatives of someone else about to lose their parent. It would be unprofessional and could be detrimental to the relatives or patient thay are meant to be caring for. Imagine a paramedic having to go to the victim of a road accident if they had lost a relative in a simialr situation, I don't know how people in these situations cope but they clearly need longer to recover following their own bereavent than someone who doesn't deal with these sitautions in their line of work.

I sort of understand where the OP is coming from. I suffer badly from depression and it's frustrating sometimes to see people who are clearly not unwell using stress or MH issues as a 'get out of work' card because it makes it much more difficult for those of us who are genuine to be taken seriously.

However, in the case of bereavement I believe that for an awful lot of people it does genuinely cause a level of distress which does make them far too unwell to work through stress. Given that a GP has a ten minute slot to make a call about who is or isn't genuine in these cases I would much prefer that some people who didn't really need it got a sick note than someone in genuine acute distress was turned away. So I really don't think GPs actually issuing the notes is a problem and I am glad they do.

Where I do agree with the OP, and what I think is the real issue here, is people on forums who casually throw around 'just get signed off' with little regard to whether or not the person is actually too ill through distress to work, and a general attitude that signing off for stress is a convenience tool which should be given on demand regardless of whether or not there are genuine health concerns. I think that makes it harder for those who are genuinely too ill from grief to be taken seriously and creates a general impression that these sort of sign offs are malingering.

I agree the issue is with the employer. I think many people would be concerned if there child's gcse or A level teacher was off for an extended period of time even if they were sympathetic to the bereavement .

3 days off for pil death your own parents yes but pil.

dh sister died suddenly last yr she was found dead at 41 massive ,massive shock he was signed off for five weeks for grief i,m not sure what else he could do it was a horrific time for him.

I think it would help if employers did their bit too and it was more routine for people to be given at least a week off following a close personal bereavement.
3 days is rarely going to cut the mustard IMHO

Chou I'm really glad you had an understanding GP.

I found caring for my terminally ill mum extremely stressful, and my work were adamant that I could not take time off, paid or unpaid, unless I was actually bereaved (their terminology!) or had a sick note from my GP explaining that I was not fit to work.

Thanks to doing 3 people's jobs at work and looking after Mum during any spare time I did have, my stress began to manifest itself physically, with sudden fainting episodes. It was clear that the cause was not 'physical' - so not treatable with iron tablets - so my GP was not able to issue a sick note saying that because of X condition I was not fit for work, and could only recommend that I find time to exercise in the fresh air (presumably during the 2 hours of sleep time I had each day).

So I requested unpaid leave (which was denied), went back to work and kept on fainting, until Mum died. I didn't blame my GP for not issuing a sick note; and I could see how my situation didn't fit in the HR process. However, it did mean I was fainting all over the place at work, which was hardly an ideal situation, and does mean I hesitate to go to the GP for anything that isn't a clearly physical problem treatable with a short course of medication (e.g. ear infection that needs a course of antibiotics).

It's easy to see how people end up at the GP for non-medical problems if it's the only way to be accepted as having one!

Adrift that is exactly the ops point. Those things are not sickness. Time off for them is not something for your doctor to grant

Surely it's about your closeness to the deceased person though. I don't think 3 days for a pil's death is excessive when you think how much that may affect your spouse and your kids if a grandparent dies. A work coleaugue took 2 weeks off sick when her niece took her own life, another had about a month off sick when her best friend died, they were both devastated.

3 days for PIL death would be absolutely the minimum for me - but then I'm Irish and funerals take place over 3 days.

I can't help but wonder if these delayed, delayed funerals in England are part of the problem - your grieving is suspended, and you are in this awful limbo of waiting for the funeral. I think having a funeral quickly after a death can, in some instances, help with the grieving process.

Long thread, but I do understand where the OP is coming from.

I work with the bereaved, and see many many different reactions and responses. I send a few to their GP, as it is very clear to an outsider that they need support, but the majority grieve and keep going.

It isn't wring to see you GP if you are struggling. It is wrong to see your GP, just to ask for a sick note to give you extra time off. You should be speaking with employer for that.

(And I do think that we are crap at dealing with bereavement and grief in this country. It just isn't automatically a medical issue).