Ontario nurses want MTV’s reality show ‘Scrubbing In’ cancelled

A new reality show is raising the blood pressure of a group of Ontario nurses.

The Ontario Nurses Association (ONA) says the MTV reality show Scrubbing In, which premiers Thursday night, is offensive and degrades their profession.

The ONA released a statement after the show’s trailer was posted on the channel’s website.

“The trailer portrays the nurses engaging in a number of unprofessional activities, and they are shown in an inappropriate, inaccurate and offensive fashion,” ONA president Linda Haslam-Stroud said in an open letter.

“The nurses portrayed in the show [are presented] as sexual objects, exploit negative stereotypes and diminish the fact that we are knowledgeable health care professionals who make the difference between life and death for patients every day.”

MTV says the show follows the lives of a group of travelling nurses assigned to work at an Orange County, CA hospital for 12 weeks. The show focuses on both the profession and private lives of the nurses, who are all in their 20s.

The ONA says that this “reality” is offensive and degrading to the professionalism and dedication of nurses. ONA members and others are encouraged to sign an online petition to cancel the program.

Another online petition has been registered in the U.S. with 15,000 signatures.

The Registered Nurses of Ontario also sent letters to MTV. The president of the Canadian Nurses Association, Barbara Mildon, weighed in with an open letter to MTV, objecting to the show’s “sexual objectification and negative stereotypes.”

Nurses’ associations have campaigned against the objectification of nurses in the media before: In 2007, after complaints from the trade association, the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario, Cadbury Schweppes Canada pulled an ad for Dentyne Ice. The ad depicted a female nurse who, responding to a patient’s call button, climbed on to beds with the patients chewing the gum.

With files from CityNews.ca staff

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