Rough cut: Public servants’ vasectomy lark raises eyebrows

Queensland’s long-suffering taxpayers appear to be giving some public servants a nice little holiday under the guise of reproductive leave.

Reproductive leave is costing Queensland taxpayers millions of dollars.

Queensland’s long-suffering taxpayers appear to be giving some public servants a nice little holiday under the guise of reproductive leave.

Taxpayers are forking out millions of dollars each year for paid sick leave for IVF treatments, vasectomy recovery, breast screening and other reproductive conditions under a policy unveiled by the former Labor government last year.

Queensland became the first state to offer its 265,000 public servants up to two weeks reproductive health leave each year as a sweetener before the state election.

But your diarist hears the leave is being exploited by some public servants undergoing vasectomies, who are unnecessarily taking the entire fortnight off for what is less painful than a tooth filling. These days laser vasectomy treatments are completed in little over an hour in a medical clinic with a local anaesthetic that allows the patient to leave immediately after the procedure. There may be some localised pain but side effects or complications are rare.

One medical insider tells City Beat that it beggars belief that someone would need two weeks for such a simple procedure.

Some doctors are now refusing to sign off on medical certificates for the entire two week period claiming it’s unnecessary and a waste of taxpayer funds.

Steven Miles =,

According to Vasectomy Australia, if a patient’s work is very physical and involves heavy lifting or extreme movement, they will need to go on light duties for a week after the procedure. However if you are, like most public servants, desk based you should be able to return to work the day after having your vasectomy.

Former premier Steven Miles (illustrated) marked Labour Day last year to announce the policy along with a directive that superannuation be paid on unpaid ¬parental leave. The two policies are costing about $103m each year. City Beat spies tell us around 1000 Qld Rail staff days were lost around Christmas due to reproductive health care leave.

Unions are already seeking to expand reproductive leave to workers in other sectors.

The ACTU Congress in Adelaide last year called on the government to insert reproductive leave entitlements into the National Employment Standards, rejecting business claims that existing personal leave entitlements were enough to allow workers to deal with the health issues. ACTU president Michele O’Neil said at the time that “too many workers have been penalised or forced to bow out of employment because of reproductive health issues.”

But as medical experts point, some are taking the generosity too far.

If new premier David Crisafulli is looking for government cuts – pun intended – maybe this is a place to start. His office has been contacted for comment. Watch this space.

Pointy end

Brisbane-based needle-free vaccination firm Vaxxas will progress a $7.2m program to develop vaccines to combat diseases including Japanese encephalitis.

The investment follows promising results from preclinical work, which showed the potential for the company’s vaccines to stay effective at temperatures of up to 40 per cent, increasing the ease to which medicines could be transported to remote and poorer parts of the world. Vaxxas will partner with leading global vaccine developer SK bioscience in this next phase of the program. Vaxxas CEO David Hoey says the technology offers a potential solution to the growing need to significantly expand global access to innovative vaccines by eliminating the current ultra-cold storage requirements.

Vaxxas chief executive David Hoey.

Originally published as Rough cut: Public servants’ vasectomy lark raises eyebrows