Hi Community-
What roles does an employer have towards medical expenses of a corona virus affected employee?
There is little less clarity on this. Help me with some details.
Regards,
Jyoti
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Hi
Corona is not an occupational disease. Hence, employer liablity is zero. Employer is directed by Central govt/Labour Department not to deduct salaries for covid affected employees while they are under treatment. Many companies are following this.
Coming to humanitarian grounds… no management will have… 
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Ha ha I agree with @Bharath. @Jyoti Some already have health insurance and this gets covered, and majority of times it’s only Leaves that are getting utilised and if exceeded, based on your relationship with management you can have a LOP spread across some months and take a deduction slowly.
But if you have a health insurance - should be okay!
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Hi Jyoti,
A very interesting question purely because the answer would considerably depend on how the employee contracted the infection i.e., whether in office or on a business trip or in circumstances entirely disconnected with his/her professional commitments. That said, Karnataka seems to be the only State as of now which has explicitly set out that all employers are required to provide infected employees 28 days’ mandatory paid sick leave.
On a related note, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDA) has issued a guideline on March 4, 2020 that stipulates that in the context of health insurance policies that cover hospitalization expenses, in order to alleviate the hardships that may be caused to the policyholders, insurers should ensure that the cases related to COVID-19 are expeditiously handled.
More thoughts from community might follow.
Thanks.
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