For mild illnesses
Pediatricians are calling for an end to compulsory medical certificates
March 28, 2024, 4:41 a.m
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Parents currently need a certificate if they have to care for a sick child at home. This means additional work, not only for them, but also for the doctor’s office. However, they no longer want to be “prosecution authorities” for employers.
Pediatricians in Germany have called for an abolition of sick leave for children with minor illnesses. “Parents can manage harmless illnesses themselves,” said the president of the pediatricians’ association BVKJ, Michael Hubmann, to the “Ärztezeitung”. Hubmann argued that it would amount to an “unnecessary use of pediatric resources” if pediatricians had to certify a harmless illness.
“Above all, we simply cannot judge whether a parent has to stay at home to look after a child,” said the BVKJ President. “Absurdly, that’s exactly what the law requires us to do.” Doctors’ practices are extremely unsuitable as “employer associations’ prosecution authorities,” Hubmann added.
The practices also created unnecessary work with certificates so that children with minor health problems could go back to daycare or school, said Hubmann. He gave the following example: “A child has a mosquito bite. The daycare center says: The child has a rash. So I get the dad from his editorial meeting. He picks up his son and comes to my practice.” Such a scenario is “no joke, it’s everyday life and a social harm.”
Last year, Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach announced relief for parents when applying for child sickness benefit. Until now, parents have had to present a medical certificate on the child’s first day of illness, if possible. In the future, according to the SPD politician, a visit to the doctor will only be necessary from the fourth day of illness.