This is a major step forward in Portugal. From this Monday, it will be possible to obtain a work stoppage for up to three days, on a simple “self-declaration” of illness by Internet or telephone. A measure that should help relieve the national health service, according to a government statement.
This measure will not involve any cost for the State or the employer, since the maximum duration of the stoppage corresponds to the waiting period during which the employee is not paid by Social Security, specified the Ministry of Health. . This provision is part of a set of measures “for dignified work”, adopted in February by the Parliament in order to improve the working conditions of employees.
The reform of the Labor Code provides for dozens of other measures, such as an extension of the situations allowing teleworking or an increase in severance pay.
Lighten the work of doctors
To obtain one of these short-term sick leaves, limited to two per year, suffering employees will now be able to justify their absence to their employer thanks to a simple sworn statement on the site of the national health service (SNS).
One of the objectives of this measure, which concerns any worker over the age of 16, is to make life easier for users and to lighten the work of family doctors in public health centres, the only ones authorized to issue a sick leave. The Ministry of Health estimates that some 600,000 consultations are scheduled each year to justify absences of up to three days. Short-term online work stoppages had been tested during the Covid-19 pandemic.