It seemed to be a left over approach from National Service days to discourage malingers from going sick. I very much doubt that it achieved this but what it probably did was to discourage good soldiers who really were sick from reporting sick as they didn't want to be thought of as malingers and also didn't want the hassle. It could have potentially caused them to incur life changing illness.It used to be said that it took a fit man to go sick in the Army!
Hopefully in this day and age you would hope that the chain-of-command would be hammered by the courts and press if such things happened.