An email sent by the Nursing and Midwifery Council advising health practitioners against setting up profiles on OnlyFans is “unreasonable” and amounts to “sex shaming”, a public policy expert has warned.
OnlyFans is a content subscription service where users pay for exclusive content from creators, and is most popular for explicit adult content.
In an email sent to practitioners on Wednesday, the Nursing and Midwifery Council of New South Wales cautioned that OnlyFans profiles could be a “distraction for patients” and bring the profession into disrepute if a health practitioner was recognised and reported for their conduct.
The Health Care Complaints Commission told the Sydney Morning Herald it had “received complaints relating to health practitioners’ use of OnlyFans”.
The council said in its email it might consider whether social media use in a practitioner’s private life raised concerns about fitness to hold registration, even where there was no identifiable link to their profession.
According to the Fair Work Commission’s unfair dismissals benchbook, an employer has the right to supervise the private activities of employees in “exceptional circumstances”, but “it is not sufficient for the employer to simply assert that the conduct will in some way affect the employer’s reputation”.
Anna Boucher, an associate professor of public policy and comparative politics at the University of Sydney and a practising solicitor, said only certain occupations – where employees were “people with public profiles giving public comment” – could be reasonably held to expectations around reputation.
Nursing was a public role, but not a high-profile one, she said.
“Unless they are a really important figure in the hospital, I don’t really understand why it matters. Does anyone who has a role where other people might see them have to create an alternate reality to be accepted in the workplace? It is unreasonable.”
The council’s email puts forward three scenarios for discussion. In one of them, a patient recognises a nurse from OnlyFans, prompting a colleague to report the nurse because “her behaviour has brought the profession into disrepute”.
“I do think that is sex shaming,” Boucher said. “It is her private time. She wasn’t advertising this. It was a nosey former patient. The only argument you can make is it is hurting some perception of what the profession is.”
In another scenario, a senior manager gives a junior preferential rostering after seeing her OnlyFans page. He then messages the junior on her OnlyFans “asking for the favour to be returned”.
Michael Whaites, the assistant general secretary of the NSW Nurses and Midwives’ Association, said in a statement: “There is no excuse for sexual harassment, especially within a workplace. Because someone chooses to participate in online platforms like OnlyFans does not excuse this, not from managers or employers, or from customers or patients.”
Most employees require an employer’s permission for external earnings, with employment contracts commonly including a condition that second sources of income must first be checked by the primary employer.
The entry wage for a registered nurse caps at $65,000. The average is just over $80,000 a year. In the past two years thousands of nurses have been on strike over pay and conditions.
Boucher said the issue “is really saying something quite powerful about the cost-of-living pressures”.
“We know the cost of living is rising, and inflation is at almost 8%,” she said. “You can understand why a nurse would want to go and do that work. They might think, I’ve been striking for a pay increase for a long time, and it hasn’t been delivered. I can do this in my own time … and it is better money than nursing.
“Do you really have the right to deny someone that opportunity … if you are only paying them $60,000 a year?”
In a statement the Nursing and Midwifery Council of NSW said its “paramount legal obligation is to protect the public”.
“The most recent newsletter aimed to reinforce the professional standards for nurses and midwives, including how inappropriate conduct on social media can lead to complaints of unsatisfactory professional conduct or professional misconduct.
“The social media guidelines are developed by the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia to ensure that nurses and midwives are meeting their obligations under the National Law.”
The NSW Nurses and Midwives’ Association said it does not object to practitioners having profiles on other social platforms and earning a second income, but it encourages nurses and midwives to familiarise themselves with AHPRA’s Social Media Guidance “regardless of whichever social media platform they engage with”.
