A union’s TV advertisement that depicts specialists taking wads of cash and driving luxury cars while patients suffer has been slammed as a “cheap sucker punch” by the AMA.
The Health Services Union (HSU) unveiled the advert this week to launch a campaign seeking a royal commission into the NSW health budget, explicitly accusing specialist doctors of pocketing money amid inflated waitlists and pay cuts for other frontline workers.
The advertisement, which the union says will run across television and social media, appears to show a man experiencing a heart attack while waiting for an ambulance and a sick child waiting for treatment.
It then cuts to footage of a faceless doctor putting a handful of $100 notes into his pocket, and a luxury Mercedes Benz with a personalised license plate reading DOCTOR1.
AMA (NSW) president Dr Michael Bonning said he was disgusted by the ad campaign, calling it an attack on all doctors.
“The HSU’s insinuation that doctors would stand idly by while patients suffer is a disgusting attack on the reputation of all doctors,” he said.
“It is a cheap sucker punch to every hard-working medical professional in the state and flies in the face of the daily heroic efforts doctors make to deliver top quality care to patients.”
“It’s unfathomable that the HSU would think this is a fair representation of the care doctors deliver to patients.
Dr Bonning called on the union to drop the campaign and work together with doctors to address the growing pressure on the state’s health system, which had impacted all health workers.