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| Injured at work? Make sure to report it immediately |
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If you are injured while performing your duties, you must report the accident (along with any injuries sustained in the accident), to your employer before the completion of the particular shift during which the accident occurred.
Your employer is then obliged in terms of the Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act, 130 of 1993 (“COIDA”), to report the accident and any injuries to the Compensation Commission, using the prescribed form (WCL 2), within seven days of receiving the notification from you.
Your employer must also hand a copy of this report to you, as the employee, and you must then consult a doctor.
Should your employer fail to report such injury on duty to the Compensation Commissioner, they may be liable to a fine in terms of the Act (COIDA).
When you consult your doctor, make sure you take along a certified copy of your ID document. After the first consultation the doctor will issue you with the First Medical Report, which must be given to your employer.
You may have to have a second and possibly further consultations with a doctor who will then issue a Progress Medical Report after every visit, until the doctor deems it fit to issue the Final Medical Report. If the employee is deemed fit to return to work, then the doctor should issue a Resumption Report.
If an employee was absent for less than three days, COIDA does not regard it as a temporary disablement and you will not be able to claim from the Commission.
It is important to note that the employer may not enforce normal sick leave if the injury and subsequent absence has arisen out of and in the course of your employment.
It is also important to note: Your employer must pay you, as the employee, 75% of your salary for a period of 90 days or three months from the date of the injury, which your employer may claim back from the Commission. Thereafter you will have to claim directly from the Commission using form W.CL.132 AFFIDAVIT BY EMPLOYEE.
Always remember that MISA can and will assist our members with any matters relating to an injury on duty or a claim against the Commission and, as always, we are only a phone call away.
Frans Phalane
MISA Legal Department
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