Source : THE AGE NEWS
I work in the medical field and I have a colleague who is claiming long COVID exemptions. They no longer work during certain times. Aside from long COVID, my colleague seems fit and well. This exemption has led to grinding yet unspoken resentment.
This doesn’t seem fair, as our colleague does not appear medically or psychologically incapacitated when they work their favourable shifts. What are your thoughts?
I understand your resentment. I just think it is better directed elsewhere.Credit: John Shakespeare
I asked Professor Andrew Baillie, from the University of Sydney, about your question. He is an expert in allied health, neurosciences and mental health and has looked closely at long COVID as part of his work.
“I don’t actually think this question is about long COVID. To me, it’s about the health workforce being underresourced and overworked and having trouble getting backfill for colleagues on leave,” he says.
“Most health workers don’t mind covering for colleagues on leave but the broader context of pay freezes, cost-of-living increases, financial constraints, along with the post-pandemic burnout and disengagement have left many in health feeling unappreciated.”
“A secondary issue is what have been called hidden disabilities, and the stigma associated when others cannot see the disability. In a well-resourced health service with a compassionate supportive culture, people with hidden disabilities are accommodated.”
Like you, I don’t like the idea of members of a team working longer, more demanding hours because a colleague is taking everyone for a ride.
When rules and policies begin to affect enough people, eventually some will take advantage of them – in some cases unscrupulously. As Professor Baillie put it, “there are a few people who game the system”.
And, unless the policy itself is ill-considered or poorly structured, that proportion is generally small. For that reason, I’m reluctant to say a mechanism such as this should be abolished, because a few people will inevitably abuse it. Taken to its logical extreme, that perspective leads to a complete lack of generosity, empathy or nuance in policymaking of every kind.
Is your colleague exploiting a commendable policy at the expense of others? It’s extremely difficult to know for certain. And any “diagnosis” from afar is made more challenging – and I think less advisable – by the fact that this person’s long COVID symptoms may not be obvious.
This inconspicuousness might be natural, or it might be because the sufferer is doing what Professor Baillie describes as “masking” or “camouflaging”. Many people with certain illnesses or disabilities deliberately hide symptoms in an effort to “cover outward signs of their condition to avoid stigma and judgement”.
In your longer email you discussed the ways in which you and others are affected by this co-worker’s changed hours. I know it can be deeply frustrating to encounter and be affected by unfairness in the workplace, but unless you are certain it is directly caused by the cynical strategy of one person, I would reflect on who is really to blame for this inequity.
Like you, I don’t like the idea of members of a team working longer, more demanding hours because a colleague is taking everyone for a ride. The idea I like less, however, is that a person with a severe, very real illness, who still wants to contribute in their area of expertise, might have no opportunity to do so based on the mere possibility that a policy could be manipulated.
