Consulcesi, holidays not taken: the company pays the retired doctor

Holidays are a right that no health care professional should give up. Not only. The company is required to ensure, actively and in full transparency, that every health worker actually takes vacation, putting him in the best conditions to do so. These are some of the Community principles, reaffirmed several times by the European Court of Justice, which inspired the sentence recently issued by the Ordinary Court of Modena in favor of a doctor who, in many years of work, has accumulated an extraordinary number of holidays accrued and not enjoyed. The judge ruled that the doctor is entitled to the payment of the substitute allowance, thus opening up the possibility for other health professionals to be compensated. In fact, this sentence obtained thanks to the commitment of the legal network Consulcesi & Partners, which every day collects “the outpouring of thousands of doctors who, due to staff shortages and company organizational problems, have their vacation plans canceled and forced to give up rest days “. The issue will be dealt with in depth in a direct Facebook conducted by Consulcesi & Partners lawyer Francesco Del Rio, Monday 28 February at 2 pm at the link: https://www.facebook.com/events/1018614642066264/?ref=newsfeed There are 5 million days of vacation accumulated over the years and not yet enjoyed by the doctors and health managers of the NHS, Consulcesi recalls in a note. Among the declared causes, there are difficulties in the organization of services and a gradual decline in staffing that began in 2009. These are the data released by a recent report by Anaao Assomed, the association of executive doctors. If you combine the medical and surgical areas, it turns out that 73% of the interviewees have between 30 and more than 120 days of unused vacation. “This new ruling strongly confirms that the paid holidays not enjoyed by the doctor are not definitively lost – underline the C&P lawyers – On the contrary, doctors can legitimately claim compensation for the damage suffered or, in some cases, the payment of a substitute financial compensation” . Not even the Covid-19 emergency can cancel this right. “The health care company has the duty to better organize the work shifts, ensuring that everyone can concretely and fully enjoy – reiterate the lawyers – the holidays accrued, informing workers of the methods of use and the risks associated with non-use. The problem of unused holidays is certainly not new but already existing before the Covid pandemic and from a legal point of view, if the doctor is unable to enjoy his holidays due to impediments that do not depend on his will but on the employer, he is entitled to obtain the payment of the substitute indemnity “. To resort to legal procedures, the time window is wider than that foreseen. “The statute of limitations begins to run from the termination of the employment relationship and not from the year in which the days of vacation not taken belong”, specifies the sentence. The respondent health care companies have chosen the path of the transaction, recognizing a substantial economic amount to the health applicants, with consequent favorable effects also on future social security payments, reports the association.