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.

If 3 days isn't enough then you take annual leave? That's what it is for, surely?

And what if your annual leave is already allocated/you don't have any left? You just take unpaid leave and lose money? Hardly fair.

Maud - I agree. My fil died last week and it will be 3.5 weeks until his funeral. It is too long. We will just be getting back to some normality then will need to deal with the funeral.

Babyroobs I can see that people in your type of work can't go busting into tears at inappropriate times but i still think it's terrible that its 'normal' to take so long off. Isn't it possible for them to work out a way to alter their work responsibilities so they can still come into work.

Maud do people tend to get all those off as compassionate leave? Since starting this job I've had four days off as compassionate leave, funeral of my grandad, uncle, cousin and a lady who was a close part of my family but was actually my cousins other grandma. I didn't ask for any of them as compassionate leave and didn't expect any of them (other than maybe my grandad, I'd have been a bit shocked if they'd expected me to take that as holiday). I realise I've had a run of deaths in the family (I can't think of a non flippant way to say that, please understand I do not feel that way) but would I have been granted 3 days x 4 for those if I'd been in Ireland? Or are you stricter about funerals as compassionate leave for close family only?

4-6 months off on full pay for the death of a parent? I have never worked anywhere where that would be acceptable! I was off for a week when my mum was dying in hospital and then off for another week to sort out the death certificate and arrange the funeral etc. Both weeks I believe I got full pay (even though the policy was three days compassionate leave).

My employer let me go to four days week (pro rata pay) for a month after that. I do appreciate that everyone's situation is utterly different, but I tend to agree with the OP, that some people, not just on here/other sites, do tend to advise that getting signed off by the GP for stress is a given right, in a multitude of situations.

I suffer from anxiety and am on medication after having periods in my life where I could have quite cheerfully thrown myself under a bus, as I thought it was the only answer. Perhaps this has made me think differently about stress, how damaging it is, and that I don't take the word as maybe as lightly as others. My GP remembered, at a follow up appointment, that I had had to put my cat to sleep -- I was quite touched by that.

'My fil died last week and it will be 3.5 weeks until his funeral. It is too long.'

Some areas have a real backlog at crematoriums and this is the reason for the delay.

Hermione whose responsibility do you think it should be to make it fair?

precisley Babyroobs i worked for the NHS when three of my grandparents died now obviously i loved them but all three were late 80,s and the deaths were not unexpected i took the three days compassionate leave and whilst i was sad they died i didnt feel i was so sad i couldnt work. when dh sister was found dead last yr it was a totally different situation for him it was a sudden death totally unexpected hugely shocking he was signed off for five weeks as he couldnt physically work .

vladthedisorganised. .

Sometimes a funeral has to be delayed, too, due to postmortem being required. All sorts of reasons.

Expat - Yes I thought maybe it was because fil is in London that it is taking so long, I don't know. Then again Muslim's can have their deceased buried withing 24 hours , so I don't understand why it takes so long for others, unless they have their own procedures I guess.

Stealth I don't live in Ireland any more but the experience of my parents and sisters (all public sector workers) is that yes, you'd get 3 days off for the death of a grandparent, uncle, first cousin or in-law. 5 days at least for immediate family - parents, siblings, spouse, children. You'd usually get more for the latter three.

Hermione is it fair on the company to have to cover the costs? I work for a charity which is on a very tight budget, they can barely cover the costs of employing me let alone to pay for me to be off sick and pay for somebody else to cover my work; it's not a case of the work not getting done because I run sessions which members of the public come to and so somebody else has to be brought in from an agency to run them which costs £££.

Well, I haven't read all the thread but I just wanted to respond with my own experience. I resent the implication that because it's a parent, it's expected and therefore the grief cannot be compared to losing other family members. I lost my Mum a year ago. I got no compassionate leave at all, I had to take what leave I needed to sort the funeral from my annual leave and I felt pressurised to go back after a week as nobody else knew how to do my job. My Mum and I were very close, she was my best friend, my mentor and my confidante as well as my mum, I was devastated! Additionally, I had to be a support to my Dad and other family members who were in pieces. No way was I ready to go back to work after a week! But I did not go and get myself signed off sick by my GP, I got on with it. By the way, how can you compare the death of a dog to that of a close family member?! It just beggars belief!

Also in Ireland cremations are still more rare than burials - there are only 2 crematoria in the whole country.

'Then again Muslim's can have their deceased buried withing 24 hours , so I don't understand why it takes so long for others, unless they have their own procedures I guess.'

Is your FIL being buried, though? In many areas, there is a longer wait for cremation than burial.

pitilessyank I agree with you to an extent, I'd find it difficult and frustrating to have to legitimise requests for time off too. But what I think this thread shows is that grief is so individual- the people saying 3 days max is enough etc. Wouldn't be at the GP.

Often it's a problem for employers as everyone has said, sometimes people need medical help and need to see someone to determine that

Thanks maud.
no regrets I'm sorry you lost your mum. I don't think anyone is saying the grief isn't real of course it is. But it's a sad fact of life that (in mostcases) it's natural for your parents to die before you. I work with people in their 50s and sadly many have lost parents recently. It's not nice at all and I really feel for them.

Expat - No he's being cremated, so perhas that explains the long wait.

'By the way, how can you compare the death of a dog to that of a close family member?! It just beggars belief!'

Oh, loads of people do. I have a mate whose daughter died and she has a lot of rather dubious online mates. So my mate posted something or other about her daughter, who died in a RTA. One gal banged on and on about 'her son'. It was a bit before it came out that 'her son' was a dog. She got really offended when we all pointed that difference out, too.

My mother is now 96. I anticipate that she will die at some point in the next ten years. It is only when she finally dies that I will have resolution to sixty years of physical, verbal and emotional abuse and the freedom to address these issues, which have blighted my entire life.

My father died twenty three years ago. I was in a deeply abusive relationship at the time and was not allowed time or space to grieve, so that will be part of it as well.

I fully expect to be away from work for a very long time.

In fairness, the OP has also lost her father at a young age. Which she said right before the bit about the dog.

Our sons teacher had a bereavement at the end of November. It was her Dad. She didn't come back till after Christmas!

Again, I am not an animal person, but there are quite a few people out there who have deeper relationships with the animals in their lives than they do with people, and we shouldn't scoff at the idea that they might grieve very hard for their animals.