Victorian Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton to appear on ANOTHER calendar
A calendar featuring nothing but photographs of Victoria’s Chief Health Officer Professor Brett Sutton has gone on sale for the New Year.
It is the second time Professor Sutton’s mug has adorned a calendar, with this year’s edition selling out at $32 a pop.
The 52-year old features in the Climate Change Calendar 2022, which features a forward by Professor Peter Doherty – the Nobel Prize-winning doctor Melburnians can thank for their world record breaking lockdown.
The Climate Change Calendar 2022 features Professor Brett Sutton
Professor Brett Sutton has a legion of followers despite being involved in numerous scandals
Ambulance service workers push a stretcher into St Basil’s Homes for the Aged facility in Fawkner on July 27 last year. 50 people died there amid allegations Professor Sutton condemned them to die
This year’s calendar, which features 15 photographs of Professor Sutton, will cost $3 more than last year, with all funds going to the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre and refugee advocates Foundation House.
A preview of the calendar shows the chief health officer in a series of sultry poses, including him seated in a stairwell and gazing at the lens.
Other shots show him chuckling and smiling at Melbourne press conferences, which for near-on two years featured running tallies of those that had died of Covid-19 under his watch.
Victoria’s Covid-19 death toll stood at 1248 on Thursday with 1007 new cases recorded and 12 deaths.
Victorians smitten with Professor Sutton have swooned over the chief medical officer’s good looks since he became a regular at press conferences.
Several social media sites have been dedicated to the professor, with one amassing thousands of followers.
His fans have dubbed themselves the ‘Suttonettes’ and praised the public servant for his good looks and ‘calm, respectful manner’.
Fans have also given Professor Sutton affectionate nicknames including Dr Brett McHunk, Scruff McHunk and Chief Swoon Officer.
Some fans were so besotted with the medical officer they designed a line of homewares including kitchenware, linen and t-shirts with his face on them
People have put Professor Brett Sutton’s head on a mug
Dozens of memes have been inspired by the clinician since his raise to fame during the COVID-19 crisis
Not everyone is a fan of Professor Sutton, with one man suggesting his calendar has more than one use
Last year’s calendar, which saw proceeds donated to The Smith Family and Médecins Sans Frontières, appeared to feature shots of Professor Sutton in times of anguish during painful press conferences.
More than 2,000 of the calendars were sold, raising just under $17,500 for the charities.
A tweet spruiking the new calendar by gender equality advocate Leanne Tonkes received a mixed response, with many expressing dismay that Professor Sutton would feature on a calendar.
‘He was genuinely surprised when I asked. But also very good humoured and generous about raising funds and awareness for two great causes,’ she tweeted.
‘Really? I’m all for it for a good cause but are you messing with us?’ Dr Shane Huntington asked, before describing the calendar as ‘fantastic’.
‘If this is real then it is very weird. Not sure how featuring in a calendar fits in the public servant code of conduct,’ epidemiology professor Bob Cumming responded.
Other’s got straight to the point: ‘This is just…almost sleezy…i am sure CHO is aware of other modes of health promotion than that of his picture appearing every month…with a message of course….eww…weird,’ one person wrote.
‘He can’t even manage a pandemic how would he manage climate change if it were real,’ another stated.
If last year’s calendar sales are any indication, bad press is unlikely to hamper this year’s efforts.
The 2021 calendar featuring Professor Sutton sold out
Some like to swoon over Professor Brett Sutton, who has become a reality star all over again during the COVID-19 pandemic in Melbourne
Another photo of Professor Brett Sutton in 2005 wearing an earring
Brett Sutton has a lot of fans, but is earning more enemies by the day
While his good looks are the driving force behind his cult status, his calm demeanour and handling of the crisis early on did not go unnoticed
More than 800 elderly Victorians died last year when Covid-19 seeped out of the state’s bungled hotel quarantine program.
Professor Sutton told an inquiry into the fiasco last year he did not know private security guards were involved in the botched quarantine program until the Covid-19 outbreak at the Rydges hotel in May, which ultimately led to most of the 20,000 cases that caused havoc across the state.
Since then he has become embroiled in numerous scandals, including a parliamentary inquiry into the forced closure of I Cook Foods – also known as ‘Slug Gate’.
Next week, Professor Sutton is expected to appear before a coronial inquest into the deaths of 50 residents at St Basil’s Homes for the Aged at Fawkner last year after the quarantine debacle.
The inquest has heard Professor Sutton made the call to stand down all St Basil’s workers, deemed Covid-19 close contacts, and replace them with agency staff.
It was that decision which led to the severe malnutrition of residents – 50 of whom died during the outbreak, the inquest heard.
‘Guess we could always use it for toilet paper, if there’s another shortage in the future,’ another Melburnian said of the calendar.