Would you resent me if I was your employee or colleague ?

[Jimisnotmyname]

DC is seriously ill and inpatient in hospital. Expected to be in for several months. I have been asked by the hospital to be on side to help with various aspects of their care. In theory, I could take my notebook in and work from the ward (and do some catch up at night from home) but I am not coping. I am falling apart and not coping with anything. Would I be unreasonable to take sick leave? We get 6 months on full pay. I have been with my employer for over a decade and only was once off sick for a month (after major surgery). It would mean my colleague's holiday will have to be cancelled and I would let a lot of people down in my department and I feel hugely guilty about that. But I don't know what else to do. I know the decent thing would be to resign but I need the sick pay to cover bills. Please be honest.

yabu - suck it up and carry on working or resign.
yanbu - get signed off

Who gives a flying fuck about whether your colleagues are pissed off or not? If they are, it's more of a reflection on them (if they are pissed off at you, rather than the company for not providing cover to enable holidays). And in any event, that should be the least of your worries.

I was in hospital for a year as a child. My
Mum moved in to the hospital in a flat that was provided to families of long term sick children. She was signed off work most of that time with stress. It was stressful! People are signed off for a lot, lot less.

No I wouldn't resent you. If I were the colleague with holiday I'd resent the company if they can't sort things out.

Don't feel guilty, OP. Life happens to everyone. And take care of yourself and hope your DC gets better.

Why are so many people saying this? If it didn’t affect the colleague at all I’m sure she wouldn’t be annoyed. I’m also sure sure wouldn’t be that annoyed if she just had to cover some extra work for a few months.

However if she has possibly booked an expensive holiday costing thousands that she’s now going to lose then I can fully understand why she’s annoyed.

It’s not about what’s “right” when it comes to how you feel. You can know deep down that it’s not the colleagues fault her child is ill etc. But it doesn’t stop you feeling anger.

I haven’t been abroad in 4 years. We’re saving to go in another 3 years for the holiday of a lifetime. If we had to cancel a 15k holiday and lose the money that we saved for 7 years you can bet I’d be raging. To be honest, I’d just quit the job rather than lose my holiday. But not everyone can do that obviously.

If you were my employee I’d be ordering you to take the time off - at least as compassionate or self certified sick until you could get a doctor’s note.

I’m a bit of an eye roller at stress leave etc, but if you were my colleague I’d have absolutely zero issue with you being off and would rally round to fill any gaps you left.

It really doesn’t, parents are still expected to do the majority of the care, aside from medical needs, when their children are in hospital.

You are not ok and have to address this. Ask GP to sign you off for mental health and then go from there.You are not coping, don’t wait until you will be at the inpatient stage. It doesn’t matter what your colleague will think, it’s up to your work to have contingency plan for the situations like yours.

What a difficult situation. Huge sympathy.

I am wondering about the need for you to be at the hospital. Is it because they are short-staffed? Does your DC need you for comfort/company, or is it for physical care that could be done by hospital staff if enough were available? Do you feel emotionally that you need to be there? I think a lot could depend on the age and understanding of the DC.

Yanbu.
But the colleague shouldn't miss out. It's on management if they can't cope with two people off. Management will have to cope for a couple of weeks.

Covering you is something your manager has to deal with. It seems odd to have only two people who can do a particular job, what happens if one of you is sick when the other is on leave or if you are both poorly. It doesn't seem very sensible.

Would sick leave even be payable in these circumstances? You may be able to get signed off with stress but sick leave because someone else is sick probably wouldn't be given anyway. This would be more parental leave and I understand that won't pay as favourable as sick pay but because it is not OP who is hospitalised with a long term sickness they may not pay out.

When my Daughter was in hospital I went to the doctors and told them I was stressed and worried that they signed me off monthy until I returned to work.

The OP is sick because of her situation, she is sick!

Again, another person unable to understand that sick leave can be for physical and mental health sickness. 🤦‍♀️

I completely understand it but you don't seem to understand HR. In order to take long term sickness, you need to have a recordable long term sickness which OP doesn't have. All she can do is get signed off with stress a month at a time. HTH.

When I worked as a support worker we had a lady go into hospital, we had to take turns doing 24 hour shifts there as the nurses wouldn't do personal care, support her to eat or drink (she was too unwell to do so herself) or support her to the toilet.

They left my aunt sitting in her own shit for an entire day when I was delayed from visiting once.

My heart truly breaks for those without friends, family or support workers to care for them in hospital, it's practically dickensian.

I think, if this could go on for months, I would be tempted to see if I could hang on until it was too late for my work to cancel my employee's holiday.

E.g. if they're going on 18th April for 1 week's leave, they would need 15 days notice to cancel it.

So if you could make it to 4th March?

Or the alternative would be to take sick leave now, as it does sound like you're super stressed, but see if things have calmed down enough to be back in a month for the person to take their holiday.

I do agree with all the others though that this is your work's problem for failing to have enough people trained up.

I am doing most of the personal care, DC cannot go to the bathroom unaided, cannot eat without me, needs watching over for mental health reasons (suicidal - though that's not the reasons for the admission). In short, they need 1:1 throughput the day and the ward cannot facilitate that as nurses look after multiple patients.

Signing off gives an option for a bit of a transition. Collapsing doesn't. We're you my colleague i would understand about the holiday. I might not be pleased with my employer but I would not blame you

We are so conditioned to work that sometimes we don't see what's right in front of us.
Your DC needs you and you aren't functioning.
You need to be off sick. Your employer will have to sort out what to do about your colleagues holiday, maybe get a locum in or cancel her diary for that week.
I hope that things look up for you and your child soon.

When is your colleague's holiday?

I think you just need to frame it correctly. You are taking time off because of the weight loss, inability to think clearly etc - your stress (as a result of your child's illness and trying to juggle everything, not to care for your child).

It might be better for everyone if you take a week or so now rather than burning out completely.

Could you then ask for a phased return? If doing something else like work is better for your mental health (I think there is some merit in this) then it helps you and might mean you can cover enough for the annual leave.

Edited to say the above is conditional on your child having made some improvements in that time and that I do think you should take time off but that you need to present it as for you, not for caring responsibilities.

Anyone on here who hasn't spent time being 24/7 at a sick child's bedside in hospital is in no position to say that the OP doesn't qualify for sick leave.
As someone who spent many nights at my disabled child's bedside in hospital I can categorically state that it leaves you in no fit state to function in real life - and the longest I did in one stretch was 3 weeks.
Hospitals very much rely on parents to care, particularly where the child has a disability where the parent is the 'expert'. This involves working a 24 hour shift 7 days a week - overworked as nurses and doctors are, even they get to go off shift sometimes.
At best, you will be given a reclining chair or fold out bed next to your child on the ward. The noise on the ward (and the uncomfortable bed)means you get very little sleep, not to mention having to attend at all hours and being woken up by the night shift at any time because, let's face it, they've got to do their job.
I can remember on the rare occasions I left the hospital, I felt like I'd been dropped into a strange place where I no longer belonged. You become so cut off from the real world that you struggled to function.

OP you have every right to go sick on the basis that your mental and physical health will not allow you to function at work.
The situation with your colleague shows very poor contingency planning by your employer. If you had suddenly taken ill or been involved in an accident and were likely to be off sick, they would have been placed in the same situation. THEY need to sort out how to cover your colleague leave.

I wish you and your child well and hope they find a bd at the specialist hospital soon.

Oh I do!

I understand HR perfectly well.

The workplace do not even need to know the route cause of the OPs stress, the sick note won’t tell
them that!

The OP is sick with stress.

That’s all they need to know.

Please please tell me you’re not working in HR? If you are get some formal training.

I was in a similar situation 2 years ago.
My manager told me to get signed off sick and not to worry about work, my GP said "absolutely, you can't work like this".

general paediatric ward but waiting for a tier 4 bed but none currently available. been told it could be months.

OP, don't do this (cover holiday).

A) It would be very unusual for your employer to allow this. You're either signed off unfit for work or you're not, you can't just dip in and out.

B) If you went ahead with that approach, your colleagues would almost certainly resent you, because it sends the message that you're picking and choosing at will, rather than needing the time off for a valid reason (i.e. if I was them I'd wonder what would have changed during the proposed period that you'd be covering holiday? If you can cover it, why couldn't you work the rest of the time?).

OP, I'd go ahead and get signed off for the period that you require. It will need to be for stress/mental health reasons (but quite frankly, you'll meet that criteria due to having a sick child and being pulled from pillar to post, so a GP is unlikely to refuse).

I've worked for an employer where someone was signed off sick to care for their partner who had cancer (stress was the reason given). We understood and it was absolutely fine.