A Random Observation on Medical Privacy in the Workplace

Yesterday a colleague of mine suddenly got yanked from all of their projects and my boss said that we were forbidden from contacting em. Which looked pretty bad; that's the sort of thing that happens right before someone files a lawsuit. So, nosy person that I am, I went and contacted my aforementioned colleague via unofficial channels. Ey's fine, no crime has been committed, ey're just taking medical leave at their MD's suggestion.

I can't really fault the company for not saying anything given how much emphasis there is on maintaining employees' privacy w.r.t. medical matters. However, their inability to speak is doing indirect damage to my colleague's (and/or the company's) reputation since most people will (appropriately, IMHO) assume that the sudden radio silence is due to some sort of major kerfuffle and not something as mundane as medical leave.