It could so happen that you are asking yourself whether an employee can still be considered capable to fulfill his or her duties. This could be the case when an employee has not been able to work for quite some time due to illness or when a final medical state has been reached. In such a case you can ask Medwork to re-examine your employee.
Right to receive sick-pay or accident-pay
On Aruba the national decrees allow an employee who is disabled due to illness, accident or ailment, the right to sick-pay or accident-pay. For an initial period of two years the Aruban SVb will compensate the loss of wages.
After two years however, no more claim can be made to this provision and the employer will be fully responsible for paying wages if the employee is still disabled. Only by means of a Disability Assessment can be determined what the real-earning capacity is and what the eventual loss of wages is.
How does it work?
At first a Physician licensed in Occupational Health or Insurance Medicine will perform a medical examination on the employee to determine what the remaining capacities of this person are and whether there is evidence of permanent disability. Based upon this assessment the examiner will draft a capacity pattern suited to an employees’ medical state. This description includes the remaining function capabilities of the employee.
Go to the Capacity Assessment topic listed below for a more detailed description of this first assessment.
Second to this first assessment a registered Occupational Health Expert will determine what kind of duties (job) can still be performed by the employee. The outcome of such an evaluation will show if an employee can still be considered able to perform his or her duties, or that the employee is expected to be able to perform adjusted duties for the same employer. At the same time possibilities for outplacement (working a different job for a different employer) are taken into consideration.
Go to the Disability Assessment topic listed below for a more detailed description of the Occupational Health Expert part of this Re-examination (VA-AD).
Conclusions of both the Occupational Health Physician and the Occupational Health Experts are merged into a final report and attempts made by the employer to re-integrate the employee are included in this report.
No two-year waiting period
There is no need to wait for the usual two-year period before applying for a re-examination. You can apply for a re-examination as soon as you want, usually your Medwork company doctor will advise you to do so if an employees’ medical situation makes the start of a re-examination process justifiable.
It is good for you to know that on Aruba these VA-AD reports and re-integration efforts by the employer are taken into consideration by the Labor Department and in Court when applying for a permit for dismissal. There are several collective labor agreements that include a clause concerning this type of re-examinations.
In short:
A VA-AD examination provides you with a clear indication of an employees’ (dis)abilities and remaining capacities.