News item | 25-02-2022 | 15:45
The cabinet is introducing temporary support for healthcare employers to keep employees who still have complaints two years after their covid infection. With a subsidy scheme, employers are encouraged to continue the reintegration of their employees so that the employee can continue to work on recovery and reintegration. The goal is to retain healthcare workers for healthcare. That is what Minister Helder for Long-term Care and Sport writes in a letter to the House of Representatives.
Some healthcare workers who contracted covid have become ill for a long time. This has consequences for their labor market position. In principle, after two years of continued payment of wages in the event of illness, continued payment of wages in the event of illness. Then people can apply for a WIA benefit.
The cabinet wants to retain care employees who became ill for a long time due to COVID in the initial phase of the pandemic. After all, in healthcare the greatest risks are incurred in direct contact with infected people. In the initial phase of the pandemic, there was little knowledge about the coronavirus and its spread, and how to properly protect healthcare workers. Still, healthcare workers have been called upon to continue working, while working with covid patients, often unable to keep one and a half meters away. In addition, due to the general pressure on healthcare and because of the general corona measures, it is likely that employers and employees in healthcare have been able to work less on reintegration. That is why the government is now offering temporary support to healthcare employers with which they can keep their long-term sick healthcare employees in service for at least another six months, so that the employee can work on recovery and reintegration.
Minister Helder: “As a society, we have asked a lot of people in care, in the initial phase of the pandemic. There was little knowledge about the coronavirus. At the same time, the people in care were there when it was needed. Because the greatest risks were incurred in healthcare at the time of contact with infected people, and because there was less room for reintegration due to the high pressure on healthcare, we offer healthcare employers temporary support to help healthcare workers with long-term complaints after a covid infection. longer in service. In this way we can retain these extremely important people for the care sector, a sector that is struggling with major shortages of personnel.”
How the temporary support works
The temporary support is in line with the existing system of illness and incapacity for work. As usual, the employer and employee make agreements about their commitment to the recovery and reintegration process. They can jointly apply to the UWV for a voluntary extension of the wage payment period in order to keep the employee in the employer’s service even after the second year of illness.
The Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport provides partial recovery and reintegration costs for workers who became ill during the initial phase of the pandemic, between March 2020 and December 2020. The employer is expected to extend the employment contract after the second year of illness for at least six months and to continue to pay the employee at least the same wage as it was in the second year of illness.
After the voluntary continued payment of wages, the UWV assesses the reintegration efforts in a regular manner. Minister Helder is now working on the subsidy scheme to be able to offer employers temporary support on request. The precise conditions will be elaborated in this.