Around 60,000 people on sick leave in Q1

The number of employees taking sick leave was between 59,000 and 64,000 during the first three months of the year, business daily Világgazdaság said on Thursday, citing data from the Central Statistical Office (KSH).

The average length of leaves was 6.6 days in January, 7.9 days in February and 8.1 days in March. A total of 1.8-1.9 million workdays were taken as sick leaves in the period.

A full 4,646 workers took periods longer than 3 days off due to workplace related accidents. The National Health Insurance Fund paid 5.7 billion forints (EUR 18.6m) in compensation to male employees and 3.3 billion forints to females.

Sick leave allowances amounted to 85.6 billion forints in 2016, of which 49.2 billion forints went to women and 36.3 billion forints to men. The payments include 4.2 billion forints of child care allowance which usually women avail of.

As we wrote before, 26 percent of the deaths (approximately 32,000 cases) could be prevented in 2014 if there were proper equipment and better healthcare system, based on the date of National Healthcare Services Center (ÁEEK). The Hungarian health status rates are far below the level of most EU member states, despite the recent increase in this field.

Source: MTI