“Before Christmas, that abandonment can be very painful”: 100 percent of sick pay was still unaffordable

All teachers who receive a coronavirus at school or are forced to self-quarantine due to an institutional incident receive full sick pay, he said. Miklós Kásler still on September 16, the start of the second wave of the coronavirus epidemic. Almost three months have passed since the announcement of the Minister of Human Resources, but experience shows that the payment of sick pay is far from what was promised.

During a nationwide evaluation of educators, professional organizations indicated that many were more likely to refuse to take samples because they feared that if they were paid sick pay due to a positive result, they would only receive 60 percent of their salary.

The experiences of educators who commented on our work also reveal that 100 percent sick pay remains an unattainable promise, in the shadow of which there are educators who have lost faith and, just before Christmas, there are serious problems. economical.

In late November, there seemed to be progress on the matter after Gergely Gulyás The minister in charge of the prime minister said that educators should be presumed to be sick at work and agreed that the procedure should be simplified and sped up, and the government would take the lead.

The amendment has not occurred since then, wrote the Ministry of Human Resources to our newspaper: “with a positive laboratory result at the initiative of the individual institution.

The total amount is paid to the worker in two installments: first 60 percent of the sick pay and then the remaining 40 percent at the end of the occupational disease procedure.

Noting the chaos and uncertainty in the institutions regarding the demand for sickness, that although in mid-September it was announced that teachers are entitled to 100 percent of the sick pay, Miklós Kásler informed the public education institutions about actual practice in another letter in early December. “After the infection of people working in public education who have been infected in the course of their work has been diagnosed as an occupational disease, 100 percent of sickness benefits can be paid in practice by accident ”States the document in our possession.

The letter describes the step-by-step procedure for someone who wants 100 percent sick pay:

1. Notify your GP by phone.
2. Detection of infection by laboratory tests.
3. After a positive result of a laboratory test, the worker informs the doctor that the virus is more likely to have been acquired in connection with work.
4. The doctor of the basic occupational health service fills in the form called “notification of suspicion of occupational disease” on the website of the Ministry of Innovation and Technology and sends it to the territorially competent authority in matters of occupational health and safety.
5. The occupational health and safety authority communicates with the employer and sends the collected information to the Occupational Health and Hygiene Department of the National Center for Public Health.
6. The NNK assesses the validity of the notification and then informs the labor protection authority about the acceptance of the disease as an occupational disease.
7. The occupational health and safety authority notifies the social security payment office of the accepted occupational disease, failing which the capital and county government office acts as the health insurance fund.
8. The social security paying agency or government office will be responsible for paying the difference between the accident sickness benefit and the previously paid sickness benefit.
9. If the measure according to point 4 is not taken, that is, the doctor has not reported the suspicion of an occupational disease, the employee can also go directly to the territorially competent occupational health and safety authority.

As you can see, to claim 100 percent sick pay, a sick teacher has to go through quite a long process, and it imposes a considerable administrative burden on the already overburdened health and epidemiological organs.

The Democratic Union of Teachers recently published a series of SMS on bank transactions about what it means to pay sick pay in two installments: educators received 58-60 thousand HUF. A physical education teacher told our newspaper, on whose account he also received only 58,000 HUF this month, saying that he will receive sick pay along with his January salary. The educator was happy with the stories and quit his job a few days ago.

A teacher who also asked that her name not be mentioned was ill for more than three weeks, but was not even promised when her sick pay would be paid, which would be 60 percent of her salary. He recently received his salary without him, which was 12,900 florins.

Surely this is a great cut before Christmas. We are not earning so well as to accumulate reserves

– He said. Seeing that the employer and the GP point to each other in the case of 100 percent sick pay, for example, in the latter case, the latter does not sign your application to be able to present it to the office of the government. “The torture that would follow would also be worth a mass. I find the whole thing deeply humiliating, ”he commented.

Another teacher informed 24.hu that five from her school had already been confirmed to have been diagnosed with a coronavirus infection, and in the case of just one teacher, the GP announced that she needed 100 percent sick pay. . Nor did our doctor’s doctor refuse to report this, he promised first and then said that it was the job of the teacher and the school. Therefore, he too will receive only 60 percent of sick pay, and so far only a small part of that amount has been earmarked for him. “Exposing many educators to such a circus is silly,” he said.

The problem is not that they refer later, but that you can hardly claim to hear from all over that every educator receives 100 percent of sick pay.

– He stressed that he does not understand why no regulations have been adopted since mid-September to facilitate the application of all those involved in the process. “If they wanted to, they would have done it a long time ago, and if they didn’t want to, they never would,” he said.

The educator also mentioned that due to the disease, the number of replacements performed by colleagues who are standing up for free has significantly increased.

Do not be told that the educator has an easy job, he always gets everything and hangs up because that is not true.

Comments to the PDSZ show that the amount of sick pay was a problem in many schools. In a small town primary school in Heves County, for example, ten cases were recorded, but only a third of the teachers participated in the institutional tests. From the institution it was written by others

they are afraid to show anything on the test and will be home on 60 percent sick pay. They don’t want to starve. Therefore, an important test became “only” positive. If the entire faculty had been vetted, I’m sure that number wouldn’t have stopped here.

And from a kindergarten in Budapest, it was indicated that after the five coronavirus cases, none of the sick workers received 100 percent of sick pay.

“Despite evaluating educators, many colleagues have indicated that they do not commit because they cannot afford to be out of work for up to weeks and receive 60 percent of their salary. It would be better with mandatory testing and a 100 percent positive sick pay test, ”one employee wrote to the defense. Testing at public education institutions has since stopped and is more likely to provide the opportunity for public service customer service personnel.

A kindergarten worker in Nógrád county also reported that after being in constant contact with workers who were found to be infected, it was likely that he also had an institutional infection, but “the possibility of a 100% sick pay did not arise. percent”.

At an elementary school in Békés County, several educators also did not request the test, saying they don’t pay anyone 100 percent of sick pay. From school they wrote to the union:

Before Christmas, a loss of money at this level can be very painful.