SW payments for commuions-WHY

Seomra Mushie

saa wrote: »

Parents who choose to put their child through this know for years its coming up, put a little aside for clothes and if needs be get a small amount such as 50 euro that will cover quite a bit of the outfit. It's not like needing a suit for a funeral, you know its coming up.

Exactly, communion can be done very cheaply. You can buy dresses in Dunnes. I wore a hand-me-down dress for my Communion, my sister and two of my older cousins had worn it before me. I didn't care, I still felt like a princess on the day.

SerialComplaint

UndercoverSpy wrote: »

It's well documented, in all hospitals that I am aware of, that nurses highest rate of un-certified sick leave is single Saturdays, followed by single Mondays for day duty, and Friday nights for night duty. Sundays (from midnight Saturday night) are paid at double time so recovery is startlingly quick.

What is meant by 'single Fridays' and 'single Sundays'?

UndercoverSpy wrote: »

There is no distortion of the truth here, this is fact. Many hospitals now compile their figures monthly. The information is available under the FOI Act and is usually available to the hospital's internal website, it was on the HSE website too.

There is some data available on http://www.hse.ie/eng/staff/Healthstat/hospitalresults/ Unfortunately, the absenteeism data is all graphical, so it's hard to see some of the specifics. I can't find anything there about days of the week. If I look at the latest data for Beaumont

http://www.hse.ie/eng/staff/Healthstat/hospitalresults/Beaumont/November_2011_Beumont.pdf

it is pretty clear that uncertified sick leave is a small part of overall sick leave.

UndercoverSpy wrote: »

For years it was never addressed. In recent years (3-4), hospitals have centralized the "I'm sick.........cough, cough" call to colleagues on the employee's ward, by having the employee call Nursing Management. It worked for a year or so (documented drop in absenteeism), but then employees became immune to the embarrassment of feigning to a senior manager and levels rose again. Interviews with the employee on return are now the norm to try stamp out serial offenders. It is well known that there are significantly more out sick, than ARE sick.

Are they also restricting uncertified sick leave for repeat offenders, so all sick leave has to be certified?

RH149

My daughter's school insisted on white robes or 'albs' for the church. We had to send in 20 euro for the rental of the albs (to cover dry cleaning I think) but it just meant an extra 20 euro on top of the expense of the dress as all the girls wore white dresses anyway for the photos- albs were taken off and handed back at the door of the church. A few, and I mean just a few of the boys wore tracksuits or ordinary non dressy clothes underneath ....so very little expense was spared due to those robes. I remember chuckling to myself that the boys who didn't wear any special clothes bar the robes had mothers who looked like they stepped off the catwalk.......and some of those brandname tracksuits and trainers probably cost the earth too .......it was just so Irish!

I got a really lovely dress in Debenams for 80 euro (not the chepest on the rail either), another 20 for the beaded headband and I think 16 euro for white shoes from Dunnes so it didn't break the bank, and I'm not struggling financially....just thought that was enough to pay and still got her a lovely dress followed by the family and grandparents out for lunch in a hotel. Simple, but a lovely day.
Many of the children in her class whose families would be in financial trouble or on SW were the ones who had the OTT outfits and bouncy castle parties etc. Crazy....but has always been the way here.

UndercoverSpy

SerialComplaint wrote: »

What is meant by 'single Fridays' and 'single Sundays'?

There is some data available on http://www.hse.ie/eng/staff/Healthstat/hospitalresults/ Unfortunately, the absenteeism data is all graphical, so it's hard to see some of the specifics. I can't find anything there about days of the week. If I look at the latest data for Beaumont

http://www.hse.ie/eng/staff/Healthstat/hospitalresults/Beaumont/November_2011_Beumont.pdf

it is pretty clear that uncertified sick leave is a small part of overall sick leave.

Are they also restricting uncertified sick leave for repeat offenders, so all sick leave has to be certified?

I mean 1 day of sick leave, a single Friday let's say as opposed to a Thursday (or Saturday) and a Friday. References to which days are most common are often on internal hospital websites (Intranet), and the ones I have seen (available to all employees) have been part of regular reports by Departments, e.g. Department of Nursing, report by Director of Nursing. It is uncommon to call in sick for a Sunday or a Bank Holiday. This is all obvious thou, we all know this is a huge problem that people call is sick Fridays and Mondays (that's not meant to be a patronizing comment). The HSE could indeed incorporate sick leave by days. GPs will tell you the commonest day for a teacher to arrive for cert is Friday (for midweek days or the week off). Each cert provided by a GP is paid at €8. If they don't give it (and they will), the employee will just find another GP.

Un-certified sick leave is by no means a small part of overall sick leave. These public sector figures are significant. You are looking at tens of millions in tax-payers money. It is not about front-line morale, it is a 'mentality' - "Everyone else is doing it, why shouldn't I?".

Re your last comment, there's no doubt IMPACT, SIPTU, The INMO etc. have acknowledged the high levels are crippling to the service as a whole (The Private Sector would never 'allow' it, you'd be long gone), and are supportive re measures such as interviewing, access to Occupational Health. However, it is deemed unworkable to have people pay €40 for a GP cert for 1 day off.

If you do a search you'll see this health service absenteeism highlighted numerous times over the last decade, with increasing frequency the last couple of years. Mangagement previously had a 'laissez faire' attitude, but they are no long willing to tolerate it (political and public pressure), on a par (IMO) with people shopping SW cheats.

I believe I've written about this here before, and what you'll find is there is a section of people who are always going to scream "Teacher Bashing!", "Nursing Bashing!". That is not my mandate.

Here's just one recent article
http://www.examiner.ie/ireland/5000-hse-staff-out-sick-on-any-given-day-169030.html

hawkelady

UndercoverSpy wrote: »

SerialComplaint wrote: »

What is meant by 'single Fridays' and 'single Sundays'?

There is some data available on http://www.hse.ie/eng/staff/Healthstat/hospitalresults/ Unfortunately, the absenteeism data is all graphical, so it's hard to see some of the specifics. I can't find anything there about days of the week. If I look at the latest data for Beaumont

http://www.hse.ie/eng/staff/Healthstat/hospitalresults/Beaumont/November_2011_Beumont.pdf

it is pretty clear that uncertified sick leave is a small part of overall sick leave.

Are they also restricting uncertified sick leave for repeat offenders, so all sick leave has to be certified?

I mean 1 day of sick leave, a single Friday let's say as opposed to a Thursday (or Saturday) and a Friday. References to which days are most common are often on internal hospital websites (Intranet), and the ones I have seen (available to all employees) have been part of regular reports by Departments, e.g. Department of Nursing, report by Director of Nursing. It is uncommon to call in sick for a Sunday or a Bank Holiday. This is all obvious thou, we all know this is a huge problem that people call is sick Fridays and Mondays (that's not meant to be a patronizing comment). The HSE could indeed incorporate sick leave by days. GPs will tell you the commonest day for a teacher to arrive for cert is Friday (for midweek days or the week off). Each cert provided by a GP is paid at €8. If they don't give it (and they will), the employee will just find another GP.

Un-certified sick leave is by no means a small part of overall sick leave. These public sector figures are significant. You are looking at tens of millions in tax-payers money. It is not about front-line morale, it is a 'mentality' - "Everyone else is doing it, why shouldn't I?".

Re your last comment, there's no doubt IMPACT, SIPTU, The INMO etc. have acknowledged the high levels are crippling to the service as a whole (The Private Sector would never 'allow' it, you'd be long gone), and are supportive re measures such as interviewing, access to Occupational Health. However, it is deemed unworkable to have people pay €40 for a GP cert for 1 day off.

If you do a search you'll see this health service absenteeism highlighted numerous times over the last decade, with increasing frequency the last couple of years. Mangagement previously had a 'laissez faire' attitude, but they are no long willing to tolerate it (political and public pressure), on a par (IMO) with people shopping SW cheats.

I believe I've written about this here before, and what you'll find is there is a section of people who are always going to scream "Teacher Bashing!", "Nursing Bashing!". That is not my mandate.

Here's just one recent article
http://www.examiner.ie/ireland/5000-hse-staff-out-sick-on-any-given-day-169030.html

Christ almighty, you sound like a barrel of laughs!!!! What is your mandate?? You make it sound that people actually die because a nurse is out sick.
Oh btw this is a thread about sw entitlements.

SerialComplaint

UndercoverSpy wrote: »

I believe I've written about this here before, and what you'll find is there is a section of people who are always going to scream "Teacher Bashing!", "Nursing Bashing!". That is not my mandate.

Here's just one recent article
http://www.examiner.ie/ireland/5000-hse-staff-out-sick-on-any-given-day-169030.html

It is clear to me that you are not bashing. And unlike many posters on boards.ie and most posters on AH, you have some actual knowledge about what you are posting about - truly a rare combination.

UndercoverSpy wrote: »

I mean 1 day of sick leave, a single Friday let's say as opposed to a Thursday (or Saturday) and a Friday. References to which days are most common are often on internal hospital websites (Intranet), and the ones I have seen (available to all employees) have been part of regular reports by Departments, e.g. Department of Nursing, report by Director of Nursing. It is uncommon to call in sick for a Sunday or a Bank Holiday. This is all obvious thou, we all know this is a huge problem that people call is sick Fridays and Mondays (that's not meant to be a patronizing comment). The HSE could indeed incorporate sick leave by days. GPs will tell you the commonest day for a teacher to arrive for cert is Friday (for midweek days or the week off). Each cert provided by a GP is paid at €8. If they don't give it (and they will), the employee will just find another GP.

It would be very useful to see some of these statistics around days per week. Simple maths and random distribution would tell you that 14% of single day sick leaves would be on a Friday, and 29% would be on a Friday or Monday. Are the real figures much higher than this?

UndercoverSpy wrote: »

Un-certified sick leave is by no means a small part of overall sick leave. These public sector figures are significant. You are looking at tens of millions in tax-payers money. It is not about front-line morale, it is a 'mentality' - "Everyone else is doing it, why shouldn't I?".

When I said it is a small part of the problem, I was basing this conclusion on the actual figures reported for Beaumont Hospital. If you look at the graph, uncertified leave looks to be something like about 5% of the total sick leave figures, so it is not the biggest problem. If I was trying to reduce absenteeism, I'd be focusing on the certified leave first as that is where the most scope for improvement seems to be.

Hotblack Desiato

It only needs a few people on very long term sick leave to massively bump up the certified figures, though. This can include people who haven't worked in years and never will, and are receiving a small pension payment, but not officially retired out on medical grounds.

marcsignal

church tax, end of problem :cool:

kraggy

marcsignal wrote: »

church tax, end of problem :cool:

Or just tell school principals to tell the kids to wear their uniforms.

Like they changed the confirmation from an all-out thing to just wearing a uniform.

Mike 1972

The involvment of schools in the process is a big part of the problem rather than the solution

marcsignal wrote: »

church tax, end of problem :cool:

Compulsory decleration/registration of ones religion (or lack thereof) to the Government ?

No Thanks Fu©k right off !

marcsignal

Mike 1972 wrote: »

The involvment of schools in the process is a big part of the problem rather than the solution



Compulsory decleration/registration of ones religion (or lack thereof) to the Government ?

No Thanks Fu©k right off !

you misunderstand.

If you want to indulge in 'invisible man in the sky masturbatory fantasies', you pay the church for the privilige, not the government.

keep church and state as far apart as possible.

mikeym

Its a joke, ive seen kids gething dropped off in limousines at communions and their parents are probably gething this "payment".

kelle

I can't believe that as a taxpayer, I cut costs on my daughter's Communion outfit (to nil, not out of necessity but because I don't see the point when I could borrow) while I was paying somebody else €242 for their outfit!

gcgirl

Better still take religion out of schools and let's see what the take up on communions and confirmations are after that
You'll only have the die hards making it

Cee-Jay-Cee

The government need to grow balls and cut the payment. Then the church and schools then need to come on board and insist that children make their communion in their school uniform. Then everyone is the same and no one can be made to feel left out if they dont have the money that others do to spend on this crass tradition.

It should also be held on a mid week day after school which will cut out the wedding like extravaganza some families go to for their kids commumion.

The Brigadier

I am a Catholic.

This is an example of what is wrong with the Chuch in Ireland - not the Church in general.

A communion dress is not a pre-requisite for your first communion and in fact detracts from what is at hand.

This is a cultural expense not a religious expense.

The Brigadier

CJC999 wrote: »

The government need to grow balls and cut the payment. Then the church and schools then need to come on board and insist that children make their communion in their school uniform. Then everyone is the same and no one can be made to feel left out if they dont have the money that others do to spend on this crass tradition.

It should also be held on a mid week day after school which will cut out the wedding like extravaganza some families go to for their kids commumion.

I made my first communion in my school uniform but I was in England at the time.

Nyan Cat

Ive been to a few confirmations and a communion where the school uniform was worn. In all cases they still had expensive outfits and parties lined up for after so cutting out the extravagance at the church wont stop parents playing keeping up with the joneses. But it would cut out the 'necessity' of limos and make this payment redundant as no one can argue that an after communion outfit is a necessity to state fund.