An open letter to the Heart Foundation

Posted on 29 May, 2019

An open letter to the Heart Foundation about your Heartless Words (most ironic title ever) campaign.

Everyone needs to get their hearts checked, including you.

Awareness raising should not come at the expense of my grief-stricken eight-year-old son and millions of others like him.

Shall I bring my little boy to your offices and sit him down in front of the advertising team while you play him the advertisement in which he will learn that Daddy didn’t care about his own heart, or his son’s? (This is a rhetorical question, obviously. Surely you can see the inherent problem in exposing a vulnerable, grieving child to your advertising…).

Will you pick up the tab for the inevitable mental health damage your campaign will cause countless people? Or should we all just stop donations to you and channel them to Beyond Blue or Feel the Magic (Australia’s leading grief education program for children 7-17) — because the damage you have already caused could very easily create a mental health crisis amongst Australia’s grieving families.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZXBua9qF8A

In 2017 you awarded me the “Women with Heart” award for my awareness-raising after the death of my husband. I share your messages very often. I’m one of your volunteer speakers and have just approved my personal story for you to share.

I really admire and love your work and frankly I’m on the edge of my seat waiting for medical breakthroughs that might stop the familial curse of heart disease. It means the world to me that you’re pouring money into medical research and awareness so others can be spared the suffering and devastation we’ve had to endure.

The Australian public is definitely complacent about heart disease. My persistent nagging on this topic recently saved my own father’s life. Even watching our family fall apart, it took him over two years after his son-in-law’s death to make the appointment that exposed 90% blockages to his arteries and led to heart surgery.

But do not pierce the hearts of the very people your organisation strives to assist. At some point (over which you’ve very badly stumbled in this instance) the potential for damage to viewers’ mental health must be prioritised over the ‘good’ in your message.

Your motivations were good. Your execution is breathtakingly callous in its emotional manipulation, cruelty and thoughtlessness.

Please do the right thing and take this psychologically damaging advertisement off air in full, immediately. Your edited version is still heartless and sickening. It’s not enough.

If you can’t bring yourselves to say the words in the ad directly to an actual grieving child then logic should have told you not to broadcast those hideous sentiments to millions. Or do you just not care about these kids?

The emotional future of many of Australia’s bereaved children (and families) depends on your next move.

Please don’t break our hearts. You’re better than this.

A petition to have the advertisements taken off air is here.