Doctors at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne have condemned the cancellation of a roundtable on “Children and War” after a Jewish peer warned that it may endanger Jewish staff members and families.
Dr. Doron Samuell, an Australian psychiatrist and economist, wrote to the RCH’s CEO, Peter Steer, last Tuesday ahead of the event, which was set to take place this Wednesday.
In Samuell's letter, which has been shared with The Jerusalem Post, he warned Steer that the event may pose a psychosocial health and safety risk, and therefore asked that it be canceled.
He expressed concern that the RCH was “inadvertently providing a platform for groups that have engaged in hateful, partisan campaigns against Israel and its supporters.”
Samuell also told Steer that he had obligations within the framework of the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004, under which the RCH has a duty to ensure employees are not exposed to risks arising from the school’s own activists.
Additionally, Samuell said that the panel’s composition signaled “a one-sided attack on Israel.”
“Whatever one’s personal views, these are not neutral briefings,” he continued, adding that a “hospital-branded session dominated by such advocacy predictably signals hostility to Jewish identities and increases the risk of moral injury, vicarious trauma, and harmful workplace behaviors.”
Especially considering the documented surge in antisemitism in Australia, Samuell said, this event would contribute to a distressing and potentially harmful interaction for Jewish clinicians.
Steer responded to Samuell last Wednesday, September 10, thanking him for expressing his concerns and announcing the cancellation of the event.
The RCH’s CEO said that while its forums are intended to deepen knowledge, share expertise, and support the well-being of children, “in this case, the framing of the session and the sensitivities surrounding it may carry risks of distress that outweigh the intended value and would not reflect our values as a hospital community.”
None of the speakers had published research into children at war
Speaking exclusively to the Post on Monday, Samuell discussed what he deemed the one-sided nature of the planned event.
“If you look at organizations and individuals who were supposed to speak, none of them have published research into children at war,” he said.
Among the panelists was Alison Moebus from Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières – MSF), who, Samuell said, wrote a biased report on Israel titled “Gaza Death Trap: MSF Report Exposes Israel’s Campaign of Total Destruction.”
Sue Wareham, the president of the Medical Association for Prevention of War (MAPW), was also going to participate. She has referred to the Israel-Hamas War as the “genocide of the people of Gaza” and has urged the abandonment of Australia’s “warm and close” relationship with Israel.
Finally, Prof. Tilman Ruff, the chair of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, which has focused on “Israeli nuclear threats,” was set to be yet another guest speaker at the event.
“I put it to the CEO that this was not the appropriate platform,” Samuell told the Post. “The [individuals] have lots of different places to say what they want to say, but to do it in the workplace is not appropriate.”
Individuals have since “launched vicious campaigns,” including “antisemitic conspiracy theories,” Samuell said. “Their own behavior shows how radicalized they are, and also how much freedom of speech they have.”
For example, a coalition of groups posted a photo of the CEO of the RCH Foundation, Ryan Brown, visiting graves at the site of the Nova music festival massacre. The accompanying caption to it read: “Why is the CEO of RCH Foundation laying flowers at the graves of IDF soldiers? Does the RCH celebrate the slaughter of Palestinian children?”
An Australian nurses and midwives group also organized a protest in front of the hospital on Sunday, with the tagline: “We won’t be silenced about the war on Gaza’s children.”
“If it wasn’t blatantly obvious who bankrolls these organizations and Western governments by now, then nothing ever will,” read one comment on an Australian doctors' Reddit group. “Must have been paid off!” another read. “Melbourne... landscape is crawling with Zionists, unfortunately, especially RCH [sic],” still another said.
The MAPW has since written to the RCH, condemning the cancellation. “We are aware that the grand round was the subject of complaints and lobbying in relation to the discussion of child health in Gaza.”
“No discussion in 2025 about children and war can or should avoid the subject of child health in Gaza,” the organization said.
It accused the RCH of a broader pattern of suppression and censorship of discussions related to Gaza, and asked it to reverse its decision.
This is the same MAPW that rallied behind Australian cardiologist Prof. Peter Macdonald earlier this month after he spread a conspiracy theory that the Mossad was behind two alleged antisemitic arson attacks in Melbourne and Sydney.
“There is far too much radicalization, far too much aggression and hate,” said Samuell. “Medicine has become hijacked, and it affects patient outcomes. There is also intense pressure on medical colleges to take a stance against Israel and its hurtful.”
Following the well-known incident in February 2025 where two nurses at Sydney’s Bankstown Hospital said they would kill Jews, Samuell spoke to Alison McMillan, Australia’s Health Department’s chief nursing and midwifery officer.
“She was trying to reassure me that there are policies in place. I asked her, ‘What is the depth of the problem? How do you know it’s isolated to these two individuals?’ She said, ‘We don’t know.’”
“I then asked the Chief Medical Officer, Tony Lawler, ‘What about medicine in general?’ The answer was the same.”
What has massively shifted, Samuell said, was that in the past, many people would have had similar discriminatory views against Jews, but the moral cost of being antisemitic has diminished significantly.
Expressing such views no longer leaves someone socially isolated, making it a “free-for-all,” he said.
“Doctors are supposed to practice within their areas of expertise, and now we have doctors cheering on the deaths of others,” Samuell added.
He recommends depoliticizing hospitals and mandating civility training.
“This is not just a threat against Jews, this is a threat to civilization,” Samuell said.