Heilsugæsla höfuðborgarsvæðisins
Pointless certificates should be a thing of the past
4th March 2026
An estimated 50,000 employees and students in the capital region received certificates and electronic confirmations for short-term illnesses last year for employers and schools, resulting in significant work for doctors and other healthcare professionals.
The certificates serve no medical purpose, are a waste of healthcare professionals’ time, and it is time to stop requesting such documentation, said Sigríður Dóra Magnúsdóttir, director general of Heilsugæsla höfuðborgarsvæðisins, at a recent open meeting of the Icelandic Federation of Trade on illness and the labor market.
According to Sigríður Dóra, doctors at Heilsugæsla höfuðborgarsvæðisins issued more than 20,000 short-term sick leave certificates last year. In addition, employees and students applied for 10,000 confirmations of registered illness in their medical records through Heilsuvera. Doctors at the Medical Outpatient Clinic (Læknavaktin) issued more than 7,000 certificates, and it is estimated that physicians at four privately operated health centers in the capital area issued an additional 10,000.
“We are approaching 50,000 short-term sick leave certificates last year. Shouldn’t we do something about this and look for alternative solutions?” said Sigríður Dóra.
No medical purpose
“We can also ask what exactly we are certifying in these short-term certificates. There is no medical purpose to this work,” she said. She noted that illnesses are often already resolved by the time people come to a health center to obtain a certificate. Healthcare professionals would prefer to use their time caring for patients who are actually ill.
Sigríður Dóra, who has worked as a family practitioner for decades, said there is no need for people to see a doctor simply to report that they had a migraine or diarrhea that has already passed. “These individuals should simply stay home and rest,” she said. However, doctors should, of course, provide care for people who are repeatedly ill.
Want to address recurrent illnesses
“We want to have time to care for people,” she said. Writing certificates is part of that work, but those must serve a purpose. “We want to identify recurrent short-term illnesses. We want to step in when someone is always sick on Mondays or constantly requesting school certificates for exams. In those cases, there is often an underlying issue, and that is where we have something to contribute. We also want to work with people with chronic conditions. There must be a purpose to the physician’s involvement.”
If employers are concerned about repeated short-term absences, they may also need to reflect on their own workplace practices, she added. For example, it may be necessary to examine whether something in the work environment is affecting employees’ well-being.
Termination can be a major shock
Sigríður Dóra also addressed the discussion about medical certificates during notice periods and rejected the idea that doctors routinely sign such certificates without valid reasons. “Losing one’s job is a shock,” she said. “An unexpected termination can be as traumatic as an unexpected divorce or bankruptcy.” She emphasized the importance of how terminations are handled and the need to explore every possible way to mitigate the impact.
“People come to us describing serious distress,” she said. “We are seeing individuals who are completely at a loss and feeling unwell in every sense.”