UAE sick leave certificates will have to be registered online

As part of the recently announced changes to the health regulatory system of Dubai Health Authority (DHA), the doctor’s sick leave certificates will have to be registered online, even if it covers just one day.

Earlier, a day of sick leave did not mandate a doctor’s certificate, but with this new rule come a couple of implications, which might change the way residents think about taking a sick leave.

Recently, the DHA announced that sick leave will have to be registered electronically from May 1, 2013, with the aim of creating more transparency in the issuance of the sick leave notes.

“All sick leaves need to be issued electronically for the sake of auditing and prevention of abuse of sick leave. Henceforth, if a sick leave is needed, it should be issued electronically regardless of the number of days,” said Dr. Ramadan Ibrahim, Director of Health Regulation at the DHA.

“Issuing unnecessary sick leave leads to loss in valuable time for organisations and institutions, and DHA is here to protect the public and to ensure that healthcare organisations do not misuse any policy. This includes issuance of sick leaves.”

Until now, doctors could manually dispense handwritten sick leave certificates (on a medical institute’s letterhead). Sometimes, however, this resulted in fraud, say healthcare providers.