There is nothing more wonderful in the life of a couple than having a baby. The woman who delivers a baby needs time to pay full attention to the needs of her newborn. I am in full agreement with this. However what is wonderful in one person’s life should not become a painful event in the lives of others. Unfortunately in the case of employees in the public sector, like government and semi-government organizations, it is so. These women get fully paid leave for three months. Recently it has been increased to six months. Many of them join it to their earned leave accumulated over a period of time, and extend the maternity leave to one year. There is nothing wrong with taking leave which is due. But that is just one part of it. No one is employed in her leave vacancy. The woman gets this leave while her coworkers have to keep doing her work while she is away. If they work in an office, they just keep her work pending, even if she remains away from work for a year. But if she is in the essential services, like healthcare administration, her work cannot be kept pending. The poor coworkers do that extra work without any compensation for the same. One can argue that they in turn will get their maternity leave when this woman will do their work. That may be true if the coworkers have babies, but some of them don’t have babies, some of them are men who do not get leave of this sort when they have babies. This in my opinion is exploitation of others. The administrators and policy makers are not concerned, because they do not get exploited in this manner. In my department a number women doctors took a job, planned to have a baby as soon as they completed the required duration of service to be eligible for maternity leave, proceeded on maternity leave at the right time, extended the leave until there wasn’t any left or further extension was not granted due to shortage of working employees, and then left. No employers was concerned because the hospital is a public sector undertaking, and the money spent is money collected from taxpayers who do not come to know what has happened and who have hardly any say in the matter anyway. I think this behavior is exhibition of selfish nature of the extreme degree.
