Why so many people are off sick while the economy is healthy

Reading 2

Using the words and phrases in Exercise 1 join the two parts of the following sentences to make definitions.

These experiences have been repressed/hidden under the surface.

The patient and the therapist/specialist can analyse all the different parts.

In most cases they would examine any anxiety complexes, phobias/strong and

unnatural fears or dislikes, that the patient may have.

Freud’s book had a revolutionary influence on 20^th century ideas/most ideas since

then show Freud’s influence in some way.

Freud believed that the analysis/interpretation of dreams could help us to

understand our waking lives.

Read the following article to find out:

What is ‘the odd thing’ about the British workforce?

What is IB?

What factors are to blame for depression?

Why doctors are not able to cope with depression?

It’s all an ill wind

Feeling a bit stressed? Pop along to the doctor and explain why you can’t sleep, can’t eat, don’t want to go out and, by the way, a nasty boss at work is making your life hell. Stress, increasingly giving as a reason for being off work, is conveniently hard to diagnose. A recent survey of 67 doctors by Aberdeen University, published in the British Medical Journal, found that most tended to hand out sick notes when asked.

The fact that family doctors, whose main job is to cure illness, have a secondary job of being gatekeepers to the benefit system, goes a long way to explain an odd thing about the British workforce. The employment rate is at a record 74.7% and unemployment is down to 5%, the lowest level since 1974. But record numbers of people – 5.9m – are off sick.

About 3m of the workless sick claim some sickness or disability benefit, mostly incapacity benefit (IB), generally available if for more that four days someone is too sick to work. The numbers claiming IB have risen inexorably to more than 2m.

Industrial injuries, of the sort that used to afflict workers in heavy industry, are on their way out. More and more, people are off for mental or behaviour disorders such as depression: numbers in those categories rose between 1995 and 2003 from 445,000 to 846,000. That is partly because mental illness is no longer considered shameful. Cary Cooper, professor of organisational phychology and health at Lancaster University, also blames economic insecurity and geographical mobility. Moving to find work takes people away from neighbours and relatives who can help them when times are hard. Americans, he says, are used to this. Britons aren’t. They visit their doctors and take to their beds.

Stress is hard to diagnose. Doctors have to get patients to list their symptoms, describe their behaviour, make a diagnosis and work out whether the root of the problem is at work, home, or in something as vague as fear of crime, all within ten minutes, says Mary Church, a Lankarkshire doctor. “We just don’t have time to work through people’s problems, so they are likely to get some quiet sympathy and a sick note.”

Ex.1.7. Translate the following expressions into Russian and get ready to retell the text with their help. You should not look at the expressions while retelling.

- to be off sick // to be off for sth (depression) // to take to one’s bed

- to feel stressed

- to pop along to (the doctor)

- to make sb’s life hell

- to give as a reason for (being off work)

- to be (conviniently) hard to diagnose // to make a diagnosis

- to hand out sick notes // to get a sick note

- family doctors

- the British workforce

- the employment/unemployment rate

- to be at a record …% // record numbers of (people)

- to claim sickness/disability benefit/incapacity benefit

- to be on one’s way out

- mental or behaviour disorders

- to blame sth (economic insecurity and geographical mobility) for sth

- hard times (to help sb when times are hard)

- to get sb (patiens) to do sth (list symptoms, describe behaviour, etc.)

- the root of the problem

- all within ten minutes

- to work out // to work through

- to be likely to get sth

FOLLOW UP:

Look the word ‘ benefit’ up and say what meanings it can have.

What do the following expressions mean?

to have the benefit of sth; with the benefit of sth;

to be of benefit to sb/sth; for sb’s benefit; housing benefit;

to give sb the benefit of the doubt; to benefit from/by sth

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