Physicians’ advocacy group calls for an end to sick note requirements in Canada

By Curtis Blandy

An advocacy group for doctors and nurses in Canada is calling for legislation that would end workplaces requiring sick notes as it is counter productive to medical professionals’ workloads.

The organization calling for this legislation is the Canadian Medical Association (CMA), who work with the media and all levels of government to communicate how to improve medical workers’ lives.

They say the elimination of sick notes for short-term minor illnesses could prevent as many as 12.5 million unnecessary health-care interactions in a single year across the country.

This data comes from a study done by Abacus Data in which one-third of Canadian respondents answered that they were asked by their employers to produce a sick note for a short-term absence at least once in the last year.

“Sick notes are not a health systems issue, they’re a human resources issue,” says Dr. Joss Reimer, president of the CMA.

“We understand that organizations have policies in place to manage their human resources, but when 6.5 million Canadians don’t have access to a family doctor and patients wait far too long for specialty care, physicians need to focus their time caring for patients who need medical care.”

In 2021, the CMA conducted a National Physician Health Survey, which indicated that 53% of physicians feel “highly burned out”.

This is in part due to the burden of administrative work that physicians must endure—including writing sick notes.

The CMA is calling for action from the government to make this change to sick note policy, which they say would improve the working conditions and lives of physicians across Canada.

This is a change that would need to be made at the provincial government level.