Medical matters

Keep at least two thing in mind when you need medical care:

1. Your health and your employment are tied up in a variety of important ways: Sick leave, temporary or permanent disability provisions, ill-health termination provisions, workplace health and safety requirements, and the workplace injury insurance scheme.
2. Little health issues have ways of getting huge—quickly. And it's not only rules and paperwork, it's your health and well-being we're taking about.

As with anyone who talks to a lot of people, I find myself repeating certain phrases. A likely candidate for the most repeated is:

Get advice from your doctor—
and follow it.

That suggestion, unfortunately, too often follows questions to me like, "What should the doctor's note say?" or "How long should the doctor write the note for?" I also get, "My doctor thinks that I should..." followed by one of a seemingly endless number of reasons why the advice will be disregarded.

Any path of action relying on misdirection, misrepresentation or misunderstanding, meanders in the shadow of disaster.

Where employment is affected, the Union and the member must both know the doctor's genuine opinion and advice. The Union can work with that.

Anything less imperils the Union's ability to effectively represent the member's interests.

We excuse our sloth under the pretext of difficulty.
—Marcus Fabius Quintilian (ca 35-100)