Financial expense incurred by medical leaves of health professionals in Rondonia public hospitals, Brazil.

The study investigates the additional payroll expense caused by absenteeism due to illness among nursing professionals and physicians at two public hospitals at Cacoal, Rondonia, Brazil. Non-programmed absences of up to 15 days which occurred at the hospital units between 2004 to 2007 were verified in the database of the institutions human resource sector. From 1,704 non-programmed absences, 1,486 were justified by medical declarations. It was verified that absenteeism caused by illness was responsible for 87.2% of all non-programmed absences. When these data are grouped by professional categories, it was observed that the nurse absenteeism due to illness reached 83.3%, when compared with 16.7% for physicians. The general absenteeism index, adding up nurses and physicians, corresponded to 0.85%, resulting in an additional payroll expense of 5.2% and 7.4% in the salaries of nursing professionals and physicians, respectively.