A court in Talavera de la Reina (Toledo) has ruled for the first time in favor of recognize Covid as an occupational disease due to Covid of an administrative assistant from a local health center, both due to a first loss after the infection and a later one due to the consequences. The sentence is not final and will be appealed by the defendants, but it is pioneer because for the first time it indicates that the coronavirus is not an occupational accident, but an occupational disease, which, related to the pandemic, is recognized for the first time in non-health personnel, with the consequent increase in the benefit.
Specifically, for a leave due to temporary disability, the worker receives the 75% of your salary on the twentieth day, while if it is an occupational disease, you are entitled to receive that percentage from the second day of leave.
The ruling that establishes it has been handed down by court number 3 of the Social of Talavera de la Reina in relation to the case of an administrative assistant, the receptionist at a health center who contracted Covid in September of last year. After presenting positive CRP, he was given leave as a work accident and he was discharged a month later, despite the continuing consequences that were not recognized because a direct relationship with his job position was not established. For this reason, he had to see a family doctor, who gave him a second withdrawal, due to common contingencies, until last January 15.
What this worker claimed and has recognized the sentence is that his initial situation was not due to a work-related accident and that his second leave was not due to common contingencies, but in both cases it was a occupational disease due to Covid. In February, the Government recognized this right for health personnel, but not for non-health personnel who work in the same workplaces.
This claim was opposed by the National Institute of Social Security, considering that “the necessary labor requirements are not met”, and the mutual, that insists on granting only one benefit, for the first loss, and that will appeal the sentence. The sentence, on the other hand, considers that the three requirements are met to consider Covid as an occupational disease for this administrative assistant.
The first is that is included in the list of occupational diseases, specifically, group 3, which includes “infectious diseases caused by the work of people who are in charge of prevention, medical care and activities in which a risk of infection has been proven.” The decree that recognized occupational disease for health workers specifically included the “severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus” in this same group.
Second, the court finds that “there is a proven risk of exposure to the specific causal agent for that disease “, as was the pandemic and the community transmission that in those days occurred in the province of Toledo and that this receptionist’s is”a profession with activities in which you are exposed to said risk causing the disease “.
With regard to the first loss, “it is proven” that this worker suffered a disease included in the list, was exposed to a proven risk of exposure and carried out a profession with activities in which he is exposed to said risk “, says the sentence, which also recognizes that the second loss is a consequence of the coronavirus.
“There is no doubt that it brings logical consequence and they are pathologies derived from contagion by SARSCov-2 which gave rise to the first professional incapacity process, “says the court.
Important achievement for CSI-F
The majority union of the public function and advisor in this case, CSI-F, has celebrated this Friday the ruling that, on the one hand, broadens the focus of the decree that only recognized occupational disease to health personnel and also hopes that it will prolong it over time, since the decree only recognizes Covid as “work accident assimilated to occupational disease for the purposes of sick leave, but it does not prolong it in time for possible disabilities and sequelae “.
Although it is not final, the CSI-F considers that the sentence “It is an important achievement for health and non-health workers”, because it recognizes the occupational disease, also for the consequences of the Covid, so that it hopes that this consideration does not end when the pandemic ends.
“There are many sequels emerging, and those that remain to be discovered, that is why recognition is so important, “they say from this union, where this Friday they have denounced that so far the Ministry of Labor has only recognized 10% of infected health workers as occupational disease and have confident that other sentences will come in this regard, because they have “hundreds of claims” in this regard.
