Managing absenteeism among pregnant healthcare workers: A case from Croatia’s Clinical Hospital Centre Rijeka

Abstract

Objective: The case aimed to highlight the increasing absenteeism among pregnant medical workers employed at the Clinical Hospital Centre Rijeka, Croatia. The paper proposed and implemented measures to reduce this trend through coordinated efforts involving the contracted outpatient Occupational Medicine, the Hospital Personnel Department, and the Occupational Safety Department.
Methods: A descriptive approach was used to assess the current state of pregnancy-related absenteeism, which fluctuated up to 3% annually of the total 3,500 hospital employees, of whom 81% were females.
Results: Immediate action by contracted outpatient Occupational Medicine introduced a selective approach to granting temporary incapacity leave only when the workplace posed a genuine threat to maternal and fetal health. In collaboration with the Occupational Safety Department, temporary reassignment to less hazardous roles was implemented, minimizing absenteeism.
Conclusions: The implementation of governmental measures in March 2025, granting significant benefits to pregnant employees, risked straining hospital operations, possibly leading to department closures given the female-dominated workforce. Adhering to Occupational Medicine evaluations and strategically reassigning pregnant workers helped mitigate these risks.

Keywords

Occupational medicine / Pregnant hospital workers / Workplace management

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I wish to thank the professor Ana Kovǎcević who checked and improved the English text.

FUNDING

The author has used his own funds to gather all the data and pay to improve personally written english text for the Journal.

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST DISCLOSURE

The author declares there is no conflicts of interest.

INFORMED CONSENT

Written consent was obtained.

ETHICAL STATEMENT

The paper was written according to the Helsinki Declaration, no names or any personal information were not revealed and there is no possibility to connect the text with any of the female workers.

ETHICS APPROVAL

The Publication Ethics Committee of the Association for Health Sciences and Education. The journal’s policies adhere to the Core Practices established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

PROVENANCE AND PEER REVIEW

Not commissioned; externally double-blind peer reviewed.

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT

The author has in possession all the pregnant workers written search during seeking the maternal sick-leave.

DATA SHARING STATEMENT

The published data in Open Access are automatically free for scientific and educational sharing.

OPEN ACCESS

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

COPYRIGHTS

Copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal.

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