Two New South Wales hospital workers who appeared in a social media video appearing to threaten to refuse to treat and to kill Israeli patients have been identified as nurses at a Sydney hospital and have been “stood down immediately”, the state’s health minister says.
The video has attracted widespread political condemnation, with the prime minister quickly labelling the footage “sickening and shameful”.
The NSW health minister, Ryan Park, launched an investigation after a video was published by an Israeli content creator depicting an online conversation he had with two people in a NSW hospital on a video chat platform similar to Chatroulette.
Max Veifer uses the platform, which allows users to have random video chats with other users around the world, to ask the people he speaks to about Israel.
In the video, he begins a conversation with a man wearing scrubs with a NSW Health insignia who identifies himself as a doctor.
When Veifer identifies himself as from Israel, the man says: “I’m going to be really honest with you … I’m so upset you’re Israeli. Eventually you’re going to get killed and go to Jahannam [hell].”
Veifer then asks the man and a woman sitting next to him what they would do if an Israeli were to come to their hospital, and the woman responds: “I won’t treat them, I will kill them.”
The man says: “You have no idea how many [Israelis] came to this hospital, and I sent them to Jahannam. I literally sent them to Jahannam.”
Park called the behaviour in the video “vile, disgusting and appalling”.
“The whole video, from start to finish, is a concern to me … the fact that they chose to do this in uniform, that they chose to do this while they should have been caring for patients,” Park said.
He said the pair, identified as nurses from Bankstown hospital, had been stood down.
“Obviously, investigative process now takes place. I don’t want to leave a sliver, a sliver of light to allow any of them to be able to think that they will ever work for New South Wales Health again.”
Park apologised to the Jewish community and said he wanted to assure them “the care that you get in our hospitals will continue to be first class”.
“There is no place in our hospital and health system for this sort of view to ever, ever take place,” Park said.
“There is no place for this sort of perspective in our society, but hospitals are different in the fact that every single Australian and every single resident of this state should be able to go to their local hospital when they need care and attention and get high quality care that is safe and effective.”
Park said NSW police and the NSW Healthcare Complaints Commission would both investigate.
Asked about what possible crimes health authorities have referred to police, Park said “nurses have a board and a clinical standard that they are registered to. So firstly, that is obviously being completely breached.”
He added: “Issues around hate speech, vile offensive behaviour towards people based on their particular faith, and obviously through the investigation – there could be a range of other issues around their individual responsibilities as NSW Health employees.”
Mohamad Sakr, a solicitor who is representing the male nurse, said his client had sincerely apologised to the individual in question and the broader Jewish community.
“He understands what has happened, he is trying to make amends,” he said. “He has never appeared before the court in relation to any criminal matters. He is a person of prior good character. It is unfortunate to find himself in a situation like this.”
The NSW Health secretary, Susan Pearce, who was close to tears during parts of Wednesday’s press conference, said: “Never in my wildest dreams did I think that I would be standing here with two staff of the NSW health system having said such horrendous feelings about our community, and particularly to our Jewish community, I offer my sincere apologies.”
Asked about claims they had made in the video about their treatment of Israeli patients, Park said there was no evidence of that based on a rapid examination of patient safety over the last 12 months.
“What we will now do through those agencies … conduct that thorough investigation to make sure, there are no adverse outcomes as a result of their behaviour,” he said.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, called the footage “sickening and shameful”.
The federal health minister, Mark Butler, and the minister for home affairs, Tony Burke, released a joint statement condemning the video they call “as chilling as it is vile”.
The shadow health minister, Anne Ruston, and the shadow home affairs minister, James Paterson, also issued a joint statement, saying: “NSW healthcare workers displaying vile antisemitic behaviour, is utterly disgraceful and deeply disturbing.”
The NSW police commissioner, Karen Webb, said on Wednesday afternoon that detectives interviewed hospital staff and establish where they believed the video was filmed. Police had also seized CCTV footage , she said.
