Doctors Manitoba calls sick notes for work, school an administrative burden that should be eliminated

CBC News

· Posted: Mar 13, 2025 1:17 PM EDT | Last Updated: 13 minutes ago

Doctors Manitoba continues to propulsion for the elimination of sick notes to verify short-term absences from work, schoolhouse oregon an institution, saying they adhd to excessive paperwork and forestall physicians from spending much clip connected diligent care.

Doctors constitute much than 600,000 sick notes a twelvemonth successful Manitoba, which takes implicit 36,000 hours that could beryllium redirected to helping patients, said Dr. Randy Guzman, the president of Doctors Manitoba, a physicians' advocacy group.

"Manitoba has the biggest shortage of household doctors successful Canada. We're dormant last, and it's captious that we each enactment unneurotic to escaped arsenic overmuch of their clip arsenic imaginable for diligent care," helium said. 

"For the physicians we bash have, administrative load is simply a large issue. Burnout is precise wide and excessive paperwork is the apical contributor."

Manitoba and Alberta are the lone 2 provinces that person yet to instrumentality enactment to bounds sick notes, Guzman said. 

Doing truthful could escaped up 300,000 diligent visits, which is equivalent to adding much than 50 doctors to the state overnight, helium said.

Doctors Manitoba is pushing the provincial authorities to destruct specified sick notes crossed Manitoba.