Romanian Government Tightens Conditions For Employees Who Want Medical Leave

Late March, Romanian Prime Minister Emil Boc called on the Health Ministry to speed up a bill regulating medical leaves and introduce fines for people taking leaves without being ill. Boc also mentioned at the time that 100 employees of the country’s privatization authority AVAS took medical leaves to avoid a salary cut.

In February, Boc said that over 100 AVAS employees demanded and received a medical leave, thus trying to avoid the country’s new unitary wage law which stated a cut in their wages from 17,000 lei (EUR1=RON4.1355) to RON 2,500.

Following the prime minister’s statements, the Health Ministry put forth a bill allowing authorities to check whether employees on the medical leave are indeed ill at home or in the hospital.

Under the bill, employees taking medical leave without being ill would lose their social security benefits for the leave period and fines would double for doctors issuing groundless medical leaves.