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Sick child with mom on the sofa: Working parents often worry about how to organize care
Photo: Dean Mitchell/Getty Images
Pediatricians in Germany are calling 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, in the “Ärztezeitung” (Thursday’s edition). »Above all, we simply cannot judge whether a parent has to stay at home to look after a child. Absurdly, that’s exactly what the law requires us to do.”
Adults are usually given two calendar days to find out whether the runny nose and sore throat go away on their own. Most employees only have to present a certificate to their employer from the third day onwards. The situation is different with sick children: up until now, parents have had to present a medical certificate on the child's first day of illness. The health insurance company then covers a large part of the loss of earnings and pays child sickness benefit - usually 90 percent of the lost net wages.
Doctors' practices are extremely unsuitable as "prosecution authorities for employers' associations," says Hubmann. It amounts to an “unnecessary use of pediatric resources” if pediatricians have to certify a harmless illness.
Last year, Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) advocated making it easier for parents to apply for child sickness benefit. Since December 18, 2023, parents have also been able to request a certificate for a sick child from a pediatrician by telephone - for a maximum of five days if the child is known to the doctor. And Lauterbach has announced another relief: in the future, a certificate will only be necessary from the fourth day of a child's illness.
The practices also created unnecessary work with certificates so that children with minor health problems could go back to daycare or school, said Hubmann. For example, parents end up in the practice with their sons or daughters if they were bitten by a mosquito in daycare - because the educators wanted to be assured that it was not a rash. “This is everyday life – and a social damage,” says Hubmann.
vet/AFP