In the city state which encourages working couples, the hard-nosed attitude of employers was highlighted during the recent closure of childcare centres because of a hand, foot and mouth disease outbreak.

More than 140,000 youngsters were kept at home for two weeks during the height of the health scare in which four children died and more than 2000 were afflicted.

But a survey of working couples found most bosses turned down requests for time-off to deal with family emergencies, the Straits Times reported today.

Some parents said they had to invent personal illnesses to be excused from work, while others claimed bereavement leave by lying that a relative had died.

Of 20 couples polled, only five were happy with their employer's stance -- a ratio matching a recent Singapore National Employers Federation survey in which 75 percent of companies said they refused paid leave to care for sick children.

"My boss keeps telling me that taking time off or going on leave disrupts work flow and interferes with productivity," said T.S. Chan who has a son susceptible to severe asthma attacks.

"My wife works too, so sometimes I have no choice but to visit a doctor for something like migraine or diarrhoea which doctors cannot or do not check on."

Wang Chui Hua, 36, said she had to dig into her next year's annual leave when her children came down with the hand, foot and mouth disease. She had already used up this year's leave caring for her two children when they had the mumps.

Connie Mak, 34, told the newspaper that when she took urgent leave because her son was sick, her company paged her and told her to return to work.

"I later learnt from my colleagues that my managing director had said, 'I don't care whether her son is dying, I want her back'," she said.

Salesman Terence Lek said he was told "work comes first," when he was refused permission to cut short a trip to Jakarta when his pregnant wife and child were both sick.

"My boss was so unreasonable. He said that going home would not make a difference because my wife and child were already sick."

Employers federation executive director Koh Juan Kiat said many companies did allow time off to care for sick children, but on an informal case-by-case basis.

The civil service gives married women officers five days sick-child leave a year for each child under the age of six.

But the government has no plans to impose similar leave on the private sector, and requests for employers to introduce family-friendly policies have been ignored.