Montenegro’s new Draft Law on Health Insurance stipulates that pregnant women must work for at least two months in the same company, that is, four months (with interruptions over the year) if they want to exercise their right to the paid sick leave. In this way, said head of the Health Insurance Fund (FZO), Mr Sead Čirgić, there will be less cases of misusing this right.
In addition, the Ministry of Health approved this proposal of FZO and it will be included in the draft Law on Amendments to the Law on Health Insurance. New Draft Law will be discussed during the public hearing scheduled for 26 March.
This is about the proposal whose main goal is to prevent numerous violations of the paid sick leave as many ‘fictional companies’ were established just for these purposes, Mr Čirgić clarified for Dnevne Novine daily.
“There were cases that pregnant women entered the employment and only a day after they wanted to take a paid sick leave. Also, in some cases, their salaries (of pregnant women) were higher than the one of the executive directors.”
Mr Čirgić also explained that new Law determines the highest salary rate for pregnant women and that he did not expect anyone would have any objection in this context on the public hearing.
