To think a baby in hospital is an exception to the rules

[OnlyFoolsnMothers]

Thursday night my DD 18months had a seizure, no idea what was happening at the time. It was horrific, fortunately she is ok now (being referred for tests), but we were kept in hospital overnight and much of Friday whilst they ran tests.
Work have informed me I need take this as annual leave. Would your work follow the same line?

I work in the NHS and would probably get the first day off paid as an unplanned emergency while we put plans in place to find child care or whatever, but unpaid or AL if anything else was required. Not all public sector jobs are equal with pay and conditions.

Compassionate leave is at the discretion of the employer though, and dependent leave is meant to be short-term unpaid to make arrangements for cover so I wouldn't (personally) call this dependent leave because I'd fully expect that you'd want to be with your child.

While they are right in the legal sense, it is a disappointing stance to take.

IM0GEN omg!!! You poor thing, this made my blood boil

OP your comment about annual leave and checking emails is a while different matter.

That I believe is illegal as it means you aren't actually being given proper leave. Do you have a union?

I wouldn't kick up a fuss, I'd just thank my lucky stars that my dd was ok.

I will ill in hospital having neuro surgery as a child and my Mum had to take unpaid leave. This was about 25 years ago.

Surely emergency time off for dependants is when they're sick at home, or child care falls through. Not when they are hospitalised. I would seek advice from HR if you have one.

No union, we aren’t supposed to “work” on leave but monitor our emails, forward them to someone who’s covering for us etc.
Fully appreciate its a different thing, I guess I’m showing how flexible and accommodating I think I am to them that it’s sad they can’t do that back.

“Disappointing stance”..so using this in my email back to them on this.

IM0GEN That Is a disgrace and made me angry just reading that on your behalf. Your manager should never have been allowed to manage anyone again after how you were treated. Did you raise a grievance?

For what it’s worth, my place is quite strict on annual leave or unpaid leave for normal childhood illness stuff but the two times my little one has been really ill, they’ve just written it off which has been really appreciated. You just don’t need the hassle.

As a manager, I’d try and stretch the rules as much as possible for anyone dealing with serious illness or bereavement to make their life as hassle free as possible. If I couldn’t, I’d just tell a report to get signed off with stress.

@IM0GEN that's awful, I'm so sorry for your loss and the appalling treatment you had.

@OnlyFoolsnMothers it'd be AL or unpaid for me too (public sector). Compassionate is generally if the close relative is dying/has died and is for a pretty small amount of time - I think our policy is 1 day up to 2 weeks depending on relationship (as in more for parent than great aunt).
I've had a fair few a&e trips with dd and always had to take AL or unpaid.

I hope your DDs tests are good news.

I work in a university. I would be allowed time off for dependents (paid) in the situation you describe. We are also entitled to compassionate leave (again, paid) for situations like seriously ill close family member/ family funeral.

I guess it depends on your company policy though, and the kindness of your manager....

My mums NHS, she had 3 days paid carers leave when I had to get a tumor removed

Unpaid carer leave I think, or hols if you want it paid.

We would get the option - unpaid leave, paid compassionate leave at the discretion of management or annual leave.

Thank you for the condolences, it was a long time ago so isn’t so raw now.

I'm a manager in a university. I would let you use compassionate leave for this. You do only get 5 days a year though - so I can see how someone above was told they couldn't use it again if someone died. However if you had a serious bereavement you'd just get sick leave anyway - which where I would would be on full pay for a good while.

Annual leave isn't just for fun stuff though - it's an allowance to use when you need time out of work for anything your life demands. I have to remind people of this when they're moaning about taking it for household emergencies - broken down heating etc.

I'd expect to take it as unpaid leave or annual leave.

We get up to 3 days of carer's leave and 5 of compassionate. Carer's can be any emergency, but compassionate is death/serious illness. I know people who have been away months, e.g., during the prolonged death of a spouse, thus I assume they took the rest as unpaid.

Was that the NHS? When my DS was dying in hospital, they refused to give me parental or compassionate leave because you had to apply for that in advance. So my GP signed me off sick with stress.

My line manager phoned me up the next week and demanded that I come in for a medical with an occupational health doctor. I told them I couldn’t attend as we were at the hospital every day, DS wasn’t expected to live more than a few days.

So he phomed me back on the next Monday and was really cross to hear that Ds hadnt died yet. He died on the Wednesday and they sent me an appointment for a few days later , accompanied by a very rude letter.

So I went along to see this doctor in the week before the funeral . The doctor was utterly appalled and signed me off for the next 8 weeks ( I was 7 months pregnant ). Before that, I’d had one day off sick in the more than 10 years I’d worked there.

I hope you raised a grievance, this is beyond appalling. I think I'd have struggled not to hit my line manager in those circumstances.

With your scenario it sounds initially unfair that you can't take it as compassionate as a one off. But the problem is that if they let you for that then any child a&e followed by tests can be challenged that they should also be able to use compassionate leave.

To put it in context I don't use a&e much. In fact I rarely have been except when told To go by the GP.
There was one year where between my 3 DC (actually to be fair, 2 of them, the third has never been) I went 11 times in 5 months. (Hardly been since either)
All of them would have involved a day in a&e and 1-2 days of tests follow up.

So I can see why they'd be reluctant to set a precedent.

Copaona leaveis no

Eh?

Compassionate leave is not a statutory entitlement.

Emergency time off for dependants (or whatever it's called) is a statutory entitlement, albeit unpaid

In my old company hard nosed corporate affair, I had a team member whose grown up daughter with her own children was very sick (brain hemorrhage). At mine and 2 senior managers up the ladder's discretion she has nearly 3 weeks off to deal her daughter and the children. We said we do not want her to worry about money, it was not an issue and she was US based but reporting to me in the UK. She bought the kids back with her for the summer & we let her work from home.
I would have just given you the days off.

The only relevant issue is what your contract says, it doesn't matter what other employers offer surely

Of course your employer should honour what you are contracted to, I'm not sure what you will achieve by knowing what other people get apart from being more annoyed at the comparison.

At the moment I'm self employed so would get nothing, others get very generous treatment it seems. When I was in employment I would not have expected compassionate leave to cover my children being in hospital. In fact I can think of at least one occasion when I took holiday.

I hope your DC makes a full recovery.

The comment is dispicable! As a small business owner we would have given it as compassionate leave and paid you. However, there would be no requirement to pay but I always take the view of how I would want to be treated! I hope that they are ok!