Dear PMSL:
What does a doctor’s certificate entitle an employee to?

PMSL's Response:
A doctor’s certificate, by itself, entitles an employee to nothing at all. A doctor does not have the legal authority to decree that an employer grant paid absence. All a doctor can do is to recommend that an employer   allow an employee to be absent due to illness for a specific period of time. It is the employer that grants the leave and pays the employee.

The Minimum Wages Ordinance does, by law, provide that certain categories of employees (Shop Assistants, Household Assistants, Catering Industry employees, etc) must be granted fourteen days paid sick leave every twelve months, provided that they produce a certificate from a doctor  for any absence of more than two days. The doctor’s certificate is supporting documentation, not directive documentation.

Other categories of employees are usually covered by organisational human resource policy which has provision for payment during genuine illness of employees, or by collective agreement, in the case of the minority of the work force that has union representation. Collective agreements always include what is colloquially called a sick leave clause. (There is, actually no such thing as ‘sick leave’…what we are really referring to is payment during illness).  These vary from the most common two weeks per annum as in the Minimum Wages Order to three weeks, to, in one case, as much as four weeks…all with the qualifying demand of a doctor’s certificate, or, in some cases a doctor’s certificate and the possibility of a referral by a company doctor as well.