Adres, Coljuegos, Health. In Colombia, work disabilities are intended to cover the absence of a worker, for a certain time, due to diseases or accidents presented that make it impossible to fulfill the normal functions associated with his position.

By law, companies and EPS (Health Providers due to their Spanish name) are obliged to pay 66.67% of the worker's daily salary (as long as the result is not less than the equivalent of the minimum wage), although in certain companies they can pay 75% or up to 100%, depending on the policies you have in the management of work disabilities.

Thus, there are several cases in which employees become incapacitated more than four times in a single month, going to their EPS to say that they have stomach upset, muscle discomfort or pretend dysphonia to pretend the loss of voice.

When the reality is that they are looking for an inability to cover events that are not disease, such as hangovers, days to lengthen a festive bridge or a weekend trip, enjoy sports, cultural championships and television series in final seasons.

An example of the latter was the estimate, according to a survey by Kronos and the Workforce Institute, of an average of 27 million disabled people in days close to the premiere of the last chapter of the successful HBO season, Game of Thrones. And the same trend applies, curiously, to the end of national sports leagues or world soccer championships.

According to Fasecolda, between 2009 and 2017 there were approximately 2,650,000 disabilities, where 61% of these were less than 10 days. Likewise, by November 2018, the Administrator of Resources of the General System of Social Security in Health (Adres) paid $ 720,000 million Colombian pesos to the EPS for disabilities over the course of that year. Therefore, the costs have been substantial.

And fraud ends up consolidating, when the same figures in the system show that the youngest are the ones who most request disabilities. Punctually, 35% of these are for people between 20 and 29 years old, while 20% are people between 40 and 49 years old. Besides, the biggest incidents are usually Mondays and Fridays and the months July and December.

In a recent investigation led by Manpower Group in Colombia, more than 80% of the companies under study claimed to have cases of dismissal for just cause, in the last three years, thanks to strong evidence on the use of false documentation, the exaggeration of the symptoms or some kind of manipulation to obtain a disability; However, they felt their hands tied by the so-called reinforced occupational stability in health that harbored such cases.

Unfortunately, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that irregularly occurring disabilities are closely related to the fact that the health sector wastes between 20% and 40% of resources.

It is even known that in Colombia the phenomenon has been strengthened with the illegal sale of medical disabilities for amounts that vary between $ 100,000 and $ 300,000 Colombian pesos.

On us, as plaintiffs of health services, falls a very big responsibility and we do not take it seriously. Fraud to obtain medical disabilities without a reasonable reason only contributes to the deterioration of health in Colombia and, although avoiding it is not the solution to all its ills, a responsible lawsuit would contribute to a lower waste of the budget and, therefore, to a greater coverage of patients treated that do require treatments, medications and disabilities to overcome their health problems.