Sickness in Spain

[Nova]

This is one screwed-up sytem.  As some of you know I've had flu over Christmas.  Not a cold, proper flu.  It started with a sore throat last Tuesday, escalating to a chesty cough on Wednesday, which became severe by Thursday, and since Christmas morning I've been confined to bed rest with every bit of my body aching such that I can barely make it from the bedroom to the bathroom.  I should have gone to work today but I called in sick and dragged myself off to the doctor - because I can't be off work without a doctor's note and the rules of my employer are that I need a doctor's note for every single day I'm off work.  The trip out was so exhausting I've slept most of the afternoon.

However, the doctor only gave me a note excusing me from work for 24 hours.  She said that if I'm no better tomorrow to go back for a "baja".  In a way that seems fair enough because I am clearly over the worst of it, but since, as we all know, the most important treatment for flu is rest, why have me make that trip over there in this state just to have one day off work?  A day where I've completely exhausted myself by going to the doctor.

So what happens now?  Yes, I'm improving but I still feel rough.  I've just made myself a bowl of soup in the microwave, likely the only thing I will eat today, and I'll be straight back in bed when I've finished typing this.  I'm aching all over.  I'm sure I need at least another day off work to recover, but if I'm off again tomorrow, I need to go back to the doctor!  Who may or may not give me a baja.  Given that I am on the recovering side of this I should be a little bit better tomorrow than today, and she didn't sign me off today, so tomorrow she might just give me another one-day note for all I know, which would be another trip out knocking me for six and only a resulting half a day to rest before facing the same choice again on Wednesday...

Or the doctor might give me the baja tomorrow, which, as anyone who has ever had one will know, lasts for one week.  To return to work either after the expiry of the baja or sooner, you have to go back to the doctor to be given an alta.  At this moment in time I think that's what I need, even if I only use a couple of days of it, but you can see why doctors are reluctant to hand them out when it's a fixed weekly interval rather than being adaptable to their purpose.  My bosses don't like bajas because most people aren't going to return to work sooner than the week even if they recover sooner.  But the need for the doctor to issue an alta even after the baja has expired seems like administrative work just for the sake of it - and the alta always delays the return to work by at least the time taken for the doctor's appointment

And the whole system now puts me in a position where it actually seems easier just to go to work even in this condition.  Probably all I need is another day (or two) of complete rest, but I can't have it because if I don't go to work I have to go to the doctor.  I've just phoned the employee helpline and confirmed that every single day off work from the first day needs to be justified by a doctor.  All I need is some rest...

[Marion]

Poor you Nova, I'm getting over a cough too. I've got my family to help with the cooking etc. but you've got to cope on your own.

Seems a very silly system, but it is Spain and we know how you need documents for anything and everything. How many times do they stamp the form too?

[Janet]

call the doctor out ... home visit! They must offer home visits unless you live outside a catchment area.

[Nova]

I've tried to get a home visit for a friend before now and it's impossible. They just interrogate you on the phone to prove that you're not on the point of dying and can therefore make it in to the surgery. My friend ended up taking a taxi to the doctors. If I were going to try for a home visit it should have been today, but even though they do do home visits, their attitude seems to be that if you're not sick enough to call an ambulance out you can get to the surgery.

I forgot to mention the rule (that fortunately they don't always stick to) that the doctor won't issue a baja on an emergency appointment, only on an appointment that was booked in advance. So you also have to know when you're going to be sick in advance.

[Janet]

that's bloody awful

[El Profesor]

.
When in Rome . . . . . . I had some Italian students recently who were amazed that we use that expression in English . . . . . "Why not - When  in London. . . . . do as Londoners do - ?

Anyway, you¡re in Rome, so what do you do?
Make an appointment - go in with your best spluttering and wheezing, wrapped up and shivering -  " . . . but Doctor, it's so hard to drag myself even as far as the bathroom. OOH how I ache all over  . . . hace diez años que no pillo un gripazo como este . . . madre mía"
Take the baja, and the prescription for antibiotics (but don't take them) then have a week off pampering yourself, catching up on your Christmas viewing, rest and recover . . . . a sort of delayed slow motion Christmas. Then go back after Reyes.
.
VERY IMPORTANT
When phoning work to tell them of your terrible misfortune, you must have a mouthful of chocolate and an olive stuffed up each nostril.

[Myrtle Hogan-Lance]

What an insane system.  Too much bureaucracy, too much waste of doctors' time, and too much on a patient who should be the hell in bed.

In the UK I have worked for employers who let us self-certify for three days, then required a doctor's note.  But never ever ever had to return to the doc to be given an alta, whatever that is in English. 

I agree with Prof.  Give an Oscar-worthy performance and get signed off.  Get better.  This stuff does not get better in just a few days so take the time.  I have always felt the only way to beat the system is to work within it.  Go for it.

Get well soon Nova.

[NAH]

....But never ever ever had to return to the doc to be given an alta, whatever that is in English. 

It's the opposite of being certified as unfit for work, so it is effectively being signed off of the sick and is therefore a 'fit to work' certificate.

They don't have them in England.

[Michael]

Sorry to hear you've had such a crap Christmas Nova.

[Delderek]