Dear Jess Wilson,
A friend of mine, whom I will call S in this letter, is very sick in St Vincent’s Hospital. Your former running mate, Chris Crewther, generously made time to meet her earlier this year and discuss some of her problems and hear her input into some of his portfolio concerns.
S is a wise, caring woman and wonderful mother. I say that as her friend and as a man who was a Registered Midwife for thirty years.
I love to use my camera to celebrate motherhood with S, just as I have celebrated decent down to earth values this year with Chris.
I want to photograph S in front of some of St Vincent’s wonderful public art in St Vincent’s public spaces, especially the wonderful statue of the mother and child in the Healy Wing.
For both S and for me, photography is a way for us to look at, understand and express ourselves about the world. We do this to share our insights with others.
St Vincent’s hospital staff are saying that what I want to do violates their privacy policy.
How does celebrating Mother Mary at Xmas invade anybody’s privacy?
I take their response as an attack on my right to freedom of speech, freedom of thought and freedom of religion.
Please help me, Jess, to persuade St Vincent’s to change their minds and to take seriously what I believe is their responsibility under the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006: to consider human rights in every decision they make.
As a society, Australia should be celebrating mums and dads more in as many ways as we can.
That is a public need and public right.
Not an invasion of privacy.
Geoff Fox, former Registered Midwife, December 4, 2025, Melbourne, Australia
The above word art with an image of Jess Wilson is cropped from and has words added to an original photo authored by “We Did Creative” and sourced form Wikimedia Commons. I publish this word art under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
A BROAD CHURCH FOR FREEDOM 