Macao’s emergency health services are struggling to accommodate an influx of people seeking sick notes during the peak cold and flu season. According to a spokesperson from Conde de São Januário Hospital, whose remarks were cited in the Macau Daily Times, wait-times to see a doctor are now around two hours during peak periods.
Earlier this week, head of the Health Bureau (known by its Portuguese initials SSM) Alvis Lo reminded the public via a press briefing that only civil servants are required by law to provide medical certificates when requesting sick leave.
Although many private companies insist employees obtain a medical certificate to access their sick leave entitlement in spite of the law, Lo urged private sector employees to steer clear of public hospitals’ emergency services unless they were experiencing severe symptoms, to avoid clogging up the health system.
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Public hospitals are particularly stressed by those seeking sick notes because private doctors operating in the SAR are not currently permitted to issue them.
In December, during a Legislative Assembly debate on civil service regulations, André Cheong, the administration and justice secretary, said private physicians may be permitted to issue medical certificates to residents in the future – but no time line was given.
The issue of sick leave, and who regulates it, is a sensitive one in Macao, where two customs officers were recently found to have exaggerated their medical conditions in order to take sick leave for over 1,400 days and 900 days respectively. The Commission Against Corruption investigated the cases last year, uncovering fraud that had cost the government over 3 million patacas (US$373,000) in wages.
