Employment Act, 1968 (Sick Leave)

Employment Act, 1968 (Part 10: Article 89A) (Sick Leave)

Sick leave eligibility and entitlement

Employees are entitled to both paid outpatient sick leave and paid hospitalisation leave if they have worked for at least 3 months with the employer.

Eligibility

An employee is entitled to paid outpatient sick leave and paid hospitalisation leave if:

• covered under the Employment Act
• served employer for at least 3 months
• informed or tried to inform the employer within 48 hours of the absence

Paid outpatient sick leave

To qualify for paid sick leave, one must be certified to be unfit for work by a medical practitioner registered under the Medical Registration Act or Dental Registration Act.

Paid hospitalisation leave

Paid hospitalisation leave is intended to cover the period that a hospital doctor deems that an employee requires hospital care, i.e:

• When the employee is either warded or underwent day surgery.
• When the employee is not hospitalised but requires bed rest (e.g. pregnancy-related complications).
• When the employee requires rest or further medical treatment for the condition after his discharge from the hospital to recover.

There may also be other specific circumstances such as Quarantine Orders as required by law which would qualify employees for hospitalisation leave. Paid hospitalisation leave is not an extension of paid outpatient sick leave.

To qualify for paid hospitalisation leave, you must be:

• Warded in a hospital as an in-patient or for day surgery.
• Quarantined under any written law.
• Certified by a medical practitioner who can admit patients into an approved hospital, including medical practitioners from national specialty centres and ambulatory surgical centres

Entitlement

The number of days of paid sick leave an employee is entitled to depends on the period of service, up to 14 days for paid outpatient sick leave and 60 days for paid hospitalisation leave. The 60 days of paid hospitalisation leave includes the 14 days paid outpatient sick leave entitlement.

An employee should have worked for 6 months or more, to get the full entitlement.