Should your opinions have to align with your employer’s?

Your opinions shouldn't have to align with your employer’s, right? That's exactly what we told the Ministry of Health today in their Workforce Regulation Consultation.

And we'd appreciate it if you join your voice in too, to ensure that doctors, midwives, nurses, and loads of other healthcare professionals are able to have free speech.  
 
The Free Speech Union has consistently recognised that professional bodies are drawing cultural issues into the workforce that have little to nothing to do with the professions themselves. They’re using ideological litmus tests to check if your thinking is ‘right’ for the job.  
 
Viewpoint diversity is being limited, stifled, and watered down, but this is not how it needs to be. 
 
(Not to mention how boring it would be if we were all robots, thinking and saying the same things...!) 
 
The Ministry of Health has initiated a public consultation that seeks to modernise healthcare workforce regulation, and we’re taking the chance to tell them our concerns over threats to freedom of expression and the current lack of viewpoint diversity in this area.  

Today, we submitted in response to the consultation highlighting four specific concerns: 1) cultural competency mandates, 2) regulatory board composition, 3) public consultation mechanisms, and 4) regulatory focus priorities.  
 
We have repeatedly challenged the mandating of cultural safety requirements across healthcare professions, including for psychologists, nurses, and dentists.
 

It should go without saying that clinical safety, not cultural safety should be the paramount concern in healthcare. Medical regulatory bodies exist to ensure the public’s clinical safety. That’s it. 

Freedom of thought is impossible without freedom of speech. If we cannot speak freely, how can we think for ourselves? 
 
When professional bodies impose ideological ideas on professionals, putting their livelihood on the line if they dare disagree, how much dialogue is that suppressing?
 
We’ve seen this recently with the Janet Dickson case, and the teacher and two nurses all under fire from professional bodies for Facebook comments they made. 
 
These stories are consistent with many of the other cases we have taken on and individuals whose rights we have defended. COVID obviously left us with many professionals who spoke out in a constructive and legitimate way, that were punished severely. But it's not just those who speak out on COVID.

Recommendations we’ve made in our submission include promoting voluntary cultural competence, ensuring balanced regulatory boards that include free speech advocates, establishing transparent and genuinely open consultation processes, and prioritising clinical safety based on objective standards. 

 
The healthcare profession is too essential to be distracted by issues that don’t concern its core function. 
 
If you’re also concerned that the healthcare profession is being sacrificed to political sensibilities, you can also have your say here. It's a quick questionnaire, where you can stand up for the rights of all Kiwis, including those who serve us by taking care of our health, to speak freely. 

Whether it’s towards nurses, teachers, academics, or public servants, we’re seeing coercion to hold particular beliefs and reports of self-censorship across the board.

That’s why we have seven industry-specific memberships, along with our general membership, to ensure individuals do not need to face the fight for free speech alone. 

We’ve built councils of professionals to govern each membership and ensure we’re creating change from the inside out.  
 
You deserve to speak and think freely. With your support, we’re making sure you can.

Stephanie Martin | Stakeholder Relationship Manager
Free Speech Union