Sick Leave

I was passing by an electronics roadshow, and you know how they feature movies on their products to showcase its flatscreen.

Well one flatscreen was showing ‘Unbreakable’ movie.

You know the part where Bruce Willis received the letter from anonymous, with the content read, “How many days of your life have you been sick”.

Of course I’m not saying I’m like the hero character as in the movie, but it got me wondering, when indeed was the last time I got sick.

Well I blog on a daily basis and if I was ever sick, its in here in my archives.

So I did a search on my WordPress.

Want to know when was the last time I was sick?

Well it was 13th June 2004.

I then began to wonder if this is normal, what is the average sickness rate of people …

My Findings on ‘Cold’ and ‘Sick Leave in Singapore’

• Children have about 6-10 colds a year.
• In families with children in school, the number of colds per child can be as high as 12 a year.
• Adults average about 2-4 colds a year, although the range varies widely.
• Women, especially those aged 20 to 30 years, have more colds than men, possibly because of their closer contact with children.
• On average, individuals older than 60 have fewer than 1 cold a year.
• 56% of employees took outpatient sick leave and 4.1% took hospitalisation leave in 2007.
• It was 52% and 4.5% respectively in 2005 for sick leave.
• Employees who had taken outpatient sick leave in 2007 on average consumed 4.6 days of sick leave, comparable to 4.7 days in 2005.
• The corresponding figure for those on hospitalisation leave was 16.3 days in 2007, compared with 14.9 days in 2005.
• A study was conducted in June 1995 to determine the current level of sickness absence in Singapore. Overall, 14.4% of the 628,477 employees took sick leave, while the percentage of working days lost due to sick leave, excluding maternity leave, was 1.1%.
• An average of 3.2 days of medical leave were taken per person per year.
• Industry specific characteristics seemed to have more influence on sickness absence than establishment size, employee’s sex and occupation (viz, professional versus clerical versus production staff), number of hours worked and overtime work.
• Over 60% of the establishments, particularly larger companies and those in manufacturing, implemented measures to control sickness absence, most commonly counselling, disciplinary procedures and attendance allowance or bonus.
• Over 13% monitored sickness absence using computerised records.

So the findings says an average adult gets two to four colds per year, and so far for me it was some 4 years plus back.

I know its good not to be sick, but isn’t it odd don’t you think. Well I did another online search, and to my delight, there was some people who shares my good health, as I read forums threads/replies.

Even in my current stay here at the rental place, the landlord couple and other tenants are sick, coughing their lungs out for the past two weeks, while I’m fine *touch wood*.

Reknown M.D. Deepak Chopra says, “there is still a mystery surrounding why certain people get sick while others don’t. For example, studies show that if cold virus is placed directly into a person’s nose, the chance of getting a cold is about 1 in 8; being exposed to chill, damp, or a draft doesn’t increase these odds. Also, when the Black Death wiped out a third of Europe’s population in the 14th century, no one knows why the other two-thirds, who were certainly exposed, didn’t die.”

Hmm I’m still puzzled over this, but I guess on how I lead my life is somehow related or amongst the factor of why I’m I rarely get sick.

I think it can be good and bad lah. Bad if I want to skip work, I could probably be employee of the month with perfect attendance record hur hur.

Funnily enough I recalled once wanting so much to skip school, as I hated my secondary school life.

So I went for a quick shower, got wet, took all my clothes off in my room and fanned myself the whole hour in the night and once more in the morning, trying to catch a cold.

And nope I didn’t get sick … what a moron I am hur.

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