Saturday, January 19, 2019

Letter to Grapevine Magazine


What about sick leave banks for alcoholics?

Our cohesive Hospital group recently reviewed the Big Book chapter “For Employers” and up popped the question, “What are some of the AA guidelines for employers to consider regarding utilizing sick leave banks for employees seeking time off to treat alcoholism at treatment center programs?” 
*
Understandably, treatment and rehabilitation is expensive and often not fully covered by insurance, so we think it’s great that sometimes fellow employees would like to chip in some of their own earned sick leave days to help the suffering person seeking treatment. However, it does appear to be a delicate subject, considering anonymity, potential stigmas and such; but we imagine that there must be some constructive ways to address this and we hope you can help us.
*
We understand that some employers use boards that vote on whether the sick person is justified in being granted some of their fellow employees donated sick-time. And employers often have policies that differ from each other. Perhaps some of the solution lies with employing a double-blind mechanism that identifies aspects of the ill candidate’s situation, but never their actual name. (Which might be impractical for a smaller organization)
*
There are probably aspects of this subject that we haven’t thought about yet and we look forward to reading suggestions or guidelines that you and / or Grapevine readers might have on this matter.
Thank you,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Popular posts