Throwaway and here is why;
I work for the Provincial government in Ontario, Canada in IT. My bosses keep extensive private briefs on every single employee. This is against their own rules and as far as I know against the Collective Agreement (with the union) but do it anyway and get away with it. A part of this brief includes your medical history, that they collect from the employee from comments or elsewhere.
I think you are starting to see where I'm going with this.
They have to deal with some employees that fake being sick so they don't have to work which is bad but they have other mechanisms in place to get rid of them. Problem is every single boss I have had recently has been incredibly lazy and doesn't want to take the effort of pounding away at rules and procedures for months to get rid of anyone. It's far easier to get them to quit by paying them out once they have collected enough "dirt" on them or in combination of what they think is "dirt" they make their working lives impossible.
The problem is for every couple of employees they do this there is also one or two that are actually suffering from mental health problems and have the proper documentation to back it up. The government isn't supposed to keep a file on you on this but they do and it's used against you. If they can find any means of getting rid of employees right now they are doing it because they are under major pressure to lower the employee head count through attrition.
I don't have to make you imagine what this does to people that are suffering. I'm surprised the one guy that was let go is still alive I really am. He had serious problems and our management did a great job to make their lives much much worse at work because they assume everyone and I mean EVERYONE is faking. Plus that pressure to get rid of employees to save tax dollars.
Oh by the way they fired those 4 or 5 employees paid for with tax dollars at $35 an hour... they hired 10 via a contracting firm that pays them $10-11 dollars less and pockets about $50-75 per hour at a minimum with bonuses included. They just don't pay them from the same place so they get away with it.
So in this environment they preach employee mental health and how people should seek help and how confidential it all is. You may as well paint a fucking bullseye on your back with a note that says fire me on it. How can anyone seek help in this shitshow?
Senior Management.. I'm talking Director, CIO, ADM level very likely assume this since lower management don't do this out of pure malice. They do it out of general vague directions. It's done so they can claim they never heard of it. Technically it's true...