Assistant Secretary Sam Casey
Sometimes life doesn’t go to plan, and you may find yourself unexpectedly injured or ill outside of work, and unable to return to your usual role or duties temporarily or permanently. It is important to understand what entitlements you have when this happens, and what your employer can do to support you while you recover.
ANMF (Vic Branch) encourages members to seek early advice from our Member Assistance Team as soon as possible if you have sustained an injury, whether work-related or not, or suffer from a medical condition that may impact your ability to perform the inherent requirements of your role. Inherent requirements are the essential tasks, skills and physical abilities needed to perform a job safely and effectively, usually detailed in a position description.
ANMF’s Member Assistance Team can review your EBA and relevant legislation, to advise on what options may be available to you if you are injured or ill. You should also contact your superannuation fund to see if there are any supports available to you while you are off work due to an illness or injury.
Light duties
We often see members advised by their treating medical practitioners that they can undertake light duties when they return to work after an illness or injury, but what does light duties mean?
‘Light duties’ is a broad term that doesn’t accurately capture the essential tasks, skills and physical abilities your nursing, midwifery or carer role involves.
You are the best placed person to think about your role more intricately in terms of your day-to-day duties and tasks, and determine what you can and cannot do within your current capacity. For example, can you walk for long periods of time? Can you perform personal care tasks? Can you squat to check an IDC bag? Can you administer medications?
A task analysis of all of the physical components of your role may assist your treating medical practitioner and you to determine what, if any, limitations you have with your current illness or injury. Any restrictions or reasonable adjustments required should be clearly documented by your treating medical practitioner and reviewed by ANMF prior to submitting to your employer for their consideration.
Reasonable adjustments
Your employer must genuinely consider the information provided by your treating medical practitioners and attempt to make reasonable adjustments to enable you to return to work where possible. We would recommend having any agreed adjustments detailed in writing by your treating medical practitioner and employer, for reference.
It is important to note, however, that while you are entitled to request reasonable adjustments, there is no obligation for your employer to provide such adjustments.
Adjustments sought by you and your treating medical practitioner must be reasonable, and can be deemed unreasonable if they may cause a financial burden to the employer, or if you are unable to fulfil the inherent requirements of your role with these adjustments – for example, working from home in a role that requires you to be patient/client/resident facing. In other words, there are reasonable grounds for your employer to refuse your request for light duties/adjustments to your role.
You can find further information on reasonable adjustments on the ANMF Member Assistance page.
What if you can’t return to work?
If your injury is ongoing and precludes you from returning to your role then you will need to take personal leave.
Few employers agree to allowing staff to go into deficits by using personal leave or annual leave in this type of situation.
Please note that, per Fair Work, you are protected from dismissal provided that the period of absence on unpaid personal leave does not exceed a total of three months in one year. Beyond that timeframe, an employer may start taking steps to terminate your employment. If you are nearing a total of three months unpaid personal leave in a one year period, please contact ANMF Member Assistance Team for further assistance.
