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Question Details: My boss wants me to take this time off as annual leave.
Filed under Employment Law | 7114 View(s)
Community Law Wellington & Hutt Valley
Taking leave from work to attend an ACC medical appointment counts as sick leave, provided you are injured at the time. If you are injured, your employer cannot require you to take annual leave to attend the appointment because, as an employee, you are entitled to take sick leave if you are sick or injured.
Even if you only take a small part of the day off work to attend a medical appointment, your employer is entitled to deduct a whole day of sick leave from your overall sick leave entitlement (see dol.govt.nz). However, some employers have leave policies that enable you to take a part-day of leave - so its worth checking the leave policy at your work.
If you have run out of paid sick leave, you are entitled to unpaid sick leave (issues of whether taking lots of sick leave will affect your ongoing employment depend on the prognosis for your recovery - and if this is an issue for you it is worth considering getting legal advice).
Answered 5 Mar 2013. The IMPORTANT NOTICE below is part of this answer.
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