“The social media guidance is clear on the obligation of nurses and midwives to maintain professional boundaries,and where relevant the Nursing and Midwifery Board may consider social media use in your private life (even when there is no identifiable link to you as a registered health practitioner) if it raises concerns about your fitness to hold registration.”
Michael Whaites,assistant general secretary of NSW Nurses and Midwives’ Association,said workers should familiarise themselves with their professional code of conduct,but they shouldn’t be stopped from participating in particular social media platforms or earning a second source of income.
“It’s important to note there is no excuse for sexual harassment,especially within a workplace,” Whaites said. “Because someone chooses to participate in online platforms like OnlyFans does not excuse this,not from managers or employers,or from customers or patients.”
Some nurses theHerald spoke to said they felt their behaviour was being policed.
“As a nurse I personally found it very moralising and slut-shaming,” said one recipient of the email,who asked to remain anonymous due to NSW Health policies about speaking to media.
Loading
“I found that having a NSW statutory body attempting to regulate what nurses and midwives do in the spare time with their bodies as fairly moralistic … I think unless they are tearing off their NSW Health scrubs and talking about how they are a nurse,what damage is it doing to the profession?”
The Healthcare Complaints Commission,a separate independent statutory body,said complaints about use of the online platform would be assessed in relation to workers’ workplace codes of conduct.
“The HCCC has received complaints relating to health practitioners’ use of OnlyFans,” a spokesperson confirmed.
A spokesperson for Health Minister Brad Hazzard said the OnlyFans guidelines were a matter for the Nursing and Midwifery Council,which is an independent oversight body,and he would not seek to influence it.
Jarryd Bartle,former policy adviser for Australia’s adult-industry body Eros Association,said,“The actions of the nursing[council] are likely to be legal.”
Now an associate lecturer in criminology and justice studies at RMIT,Bartle said that there are no protections from discrimination in public life and employment in NSW when it comes to being a sex worker or posting sexually explicit content online.
Employers can also set obligations for employees to disclose potential conflicts or potential outside income,he said,“and that’s perfectly allowed”.
“When we looked at sex work[at Eros],a significant proportion of[it] is part of the kind of gig economy and as a form of supplementary income.
Loading
“And so I think it’s definitely the case that,if you’re in a job that is not providing you sufficient income to live on,you’re going to seek outside forms of income – and the sex industry is and always has been a means for people to get extra income.”
The starting wage for a registered nurse or midwife in NSW is $67,000.
The Morning Edition newsletter is our guide to the day’s most important and interesting stories,analysis and insights.Sign up here.