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Employee with terminal illness

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  1. #1

    Join Date
    Mar 2007
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    13,099

    Employee with terminal illness

    Scenario :
    - Employee has been working for employer for 5 years
    - Senior and exemplar employee no complaints about performance for 4.5 years
    - Employee has terminal condition (cancer) and is predicted to live no more than 24 months.
    - Employee has only been 50% present and equally only 50% effective at work for the past 6 months due to illness and treatments (chemo/radiation)
    - It is expected that employee's performance will decline gradually as the illness progresses and employee will not get better

    Aside : (I dont think this matters but I will state for completeness) employee has very good insurance plan provided by the employer for sickness and death benefits as well as loss of income.

    Under labour laws of Hong Kong, what are the obligations of the employer towards this employee who has been ill and working sub-standardly due to illness for past 6 months? Is the employer allowed to terminate the employee? After 6 months? After 1 year? How long is the employee entitled to claim full salary?

    HC


  2. #2

    Join Date
    Mar 2010
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    1,194

    No he is not. Even after 7 days you can start cutting their pay....

    The labour law is pretty heartless on this. I had a similar situation.


  3. #3

    Join Date
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    HC - Send a PM to Xenon, he's a real lawyer and specializes in Employment issues in HK. Best not to muck around with this.


  4. #4

    Join Date
    Jun 2004
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    HK
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    Quote Originally Posted by HowardCoombs:
    Scenario :
    - Employee has been working for employer for 5 years
    - Senior and exemplar employee no complaints about performance for 4.5 years
    - Employee has terminal condition (cancer) and is predicted to live no more than 24 months.
    - Employee has only been 50% present and equally only 50% effective at work for the past 6 months due to illness and treatments (chemo/radiation)
    - It is expected that employee's performance will decline gradually as the illness progresses and employee will not get better

    Aside : (I dont think this matters but I will state for completeness) employee has very good insurance plan provided by the employer for sickness and death benefits as well as loss of income.

    Under labour laws of Hong Kong, what are the obligations of the employer towards this employee who has been ill and working sub-standardly due to illness for past 6 months? Is the employer allowed to terminate the employee? After 6 months? After 1 year? How long is the employee entitled to claim full salary?

    HC
    I am not sure about the law but as an "alternative" can't you redefine the employee's role/package under the new circumstances, instead of simply terminating him at this particular moment? Just a thought.

  5. #5

    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Posts
    4,043
    CLIC - Employment Disputes: What constitutes an “unreasonable and unlawful dismissal”?

    The Hong Kong Community Legal Information site is good on general issues of employment so this is not a bad place to do some reading.

    If there is a good health insurance plan in place you should consult with them as well.

    Their goal is to keep their payments down and get early return to work, etc as they make money by keeping claim costs down but at least they can give you the rules.

    I am amazed at how in HK we hear reasons for leaving - 'medical situation' where I am from Canada and you'd never leave your job when ill as the benefit plans are too good. Here low taxes but low benefits and not caring employers.

    ---

    If your goal is get him out as he is not able to do a full job but it is not an issue as he gets paid regardless then this is not legal as much as sensitive, caring handling to encourage him to spend his time recovering at home with his family and not having extra stress due to work.

    I only saw one person - an exec - who on his death bed wished he had spent more time at the office. He worked from his hospital bed as our COO. Quite sad. His wife took their dream vacation for the both of them - alone.
    Last edited by Football16; 27-04-2011 at 11:17 AM.
    alden12 and Dreadnought like this.

  6. #6

    Join Date
    Mar 2007
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    Gold Coast Marina
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    It looks like from reading the info that Football listed, that you cannot dismiss while on paid sick leave, but that sick leave can only accumulate to maximum of 120 days, so once they have taken all the 120 days then you can dismiss legally. If they have good insurance and loss of income plan, perhaps you can just give then unpaid leave until they "leave" for good ... that way all the benefits would continue, (you might want to check on the loss of income one) and they would be able to take the time to do whatever they need to do in their final months.


  7. #7

    Join Date
    Mar 2007
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    13,099

    Thank you for all the views, comments and opinions on this tough situation.
    HC