Hong Kong lifeguards abusing sick leave, says watchdog’s report

The city’s beaches and public swimming pools have closed more often in recent years owing to a lack of lifeguards and an ­increasing trend for them to abuse sick leave, a government watchdog said.

But a lifeguards’ union said taking sick leave was a part of the strike action by its members to pressure the Leisure and Cultural Services Department into employing more staff to ease their workload.

The number of lifeguards suspected of lying about their health to skip work increased from four in 2011 to 57 last year, comprising 80 per cent of all sick leave cases under the department, an Ombudsman report released yesterday, said.

One lifeguard alone took 237 days of sick leave in the last year, adding up to a total of 537 days in six years of service between 2010 and last year. On at least six occasions, this led to his pool being closed.

While the Office of the Ombudsman said it did not know whether the lifeguard in this extreme case had genuinely been sick, it added that the department’s monitoring of sick leave was lax compared to other government departments.