Can an employer make you use Holiday leave for op?

bigstevex

Girlfriend needs a wisdom tooth out but they have told her she will need upto 2 weeks off afterwards on a doctors note obviously. She has been into work and told them this and they have said there's no way she can have 2 weeks off, she will have to use her holiday leave!

Are they allowed to do this?

Barneysmom

No they can't make her do that. Sick leave is sick leave, not a holiday.
Though she might not get paid?

I was off for about 2 weeks to, she'll need a lot of care.

DCFC79

I had a wisdom tooth out recently and i had the afternoon off so i could go and i was back at work next day, to me its the same as having a normal tooth out

Barneysmom

With mine he cracked my jawbone and it got infected. Doc said it's dangerous? I had a lot of pain, worse than anything I've had before.

Lorian

I got a socket infection but was still back after about 3 days. I guess its worse if you have general and them all out at the same time. Pretty unreasonable to expect holidays to be used imho.

bigstevex

yes its general anesthetic, its pointing sideways into the next tooth so it can't be pulled so they have to cut the gum open and cut it into 8 pieces to get it out

dmg24

I feel quite poorly just reading this ...

But as others have said, she can't be forced to take annual leave in place of sick leave, however she may only receive SSP for the period of absence.

bigstevex

Not too bothered about the pay situation we can budget for that I guess, just need to know if its 'legal' what they want to do, its a small in the uk but large in the us financial company!

mum2one

As long as ur gf has a doctors note their is nothing the company can do, she can sign herself off for the 1st 7 days,then she needs a sick note, if the doctor has said she needs 2 wks off, they may while give her a sicknote from the start.
Unless ur gf has any form of company sick pay, and she has to go on ssp,the first 3 days arent counted, so week1 2 days pd, then the 2nd week onwards will be 5 days sick pay,think its only apr £60 per week.

samba

bigstevex wrote: »

yes its general anesthetic, its pointing sideways into the next tooth so it can't be pulled so they have to cut the gum open and cut it into 8 pieces to get it out

I had one like that taken out 'cept they didn't really cut it into bits, they just cut a groove in the top like a screw, inserted a screwdriver-like implement and twisted it until it split in 2. Then they pulled the main bits out and left the rest to work their way out themselves. It took about a week for the swelling to go down, but I was back on my feet the following week. Also, I only had local anaesthetic, so I had the luxury of hearing/feeling the tooth crack in two! This all occured in an emergency dental unit, which was in fact a caravan round the back of the hospital...

timbellina

I think she needs to explain to her work what's going to happen. I expect their reaction was much the same as mine until I read how the tooth was positioned etc. My first thought was "Two weeks? For a wisdom tooth? She's taking the mick!" But the op varies in seriousness and while it's happily not life threatening, this is a big version and any general anaesthetic is too serious to let you back to work the next day.

I should think once they understand what the poor kid's going to be going through, they won't especially want her wandering round, white faced, dribbling blood on their nice clean floors.

Tim