Actor Noah Wyle plays a doctor on TV. He's also advocating for health care workers like his mom
Actor Noah Wyle, known for playing medical professionals in TV shows from "ER" to "The Pitt," is using his career experiences and personal connection to the health care industry to help advocate change for frontline workers.
Alongside his mom — who had been a nurse for more than four decades — he says he's lobbying for legislation to improve their lives when it comes to staffing shortages and burnout.
"A lot of these people have been in these tours of duty nonstop for five years without a break," said Wyle, who stars as Dr. Michael "Robby" Robinavitch on "The Pitt."
Wyle and his mom, Marjorie Wyle-Katz, are on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., this week with a group organized by FIGS, a health care apparel company, advocating for three bills.
"One is to pass and fund the Lorna Breen Act … it is geared towards making evidence-based mental health resources available to frontline workers," Wyle explained.
A second bill would offer a tax credit to frontline workers, he said, "where there hasn't been one before to offset some of the pay disparity."
The third piece of legislation would relieve the administrative burden put on health care workers.
"This is not just a workforce problem, this is a patient care problem. The trickle down of these things not being enacted will affect all of us eventually," Wyle said.
Wyle-Katz told "CBS Mornings" that nurses are advocates for their patients, and that she believes they are not adequately compensated.
"Nurses can't bill for their time and their skills. Whenever there's a budget cut, the nurses are the first to go."
Beyond finances, Wyle-Katz expressed concerns about safety in the workplace for nurses and health care workers.
"When patients come to the hospital, they're either injured or sick, and they're very afraid. They're not seen often in a timely manner, which leads to frustration, which escalates to anger," she said.
Wyle's career on health care TV shows
Wyle, who starred in "ER" for more than a decade, said he wanted to create "The Pitt" to show what it's like to work as a frontline health care worker and the toll it's taken on medical professionals, both mentally and physically, following the COVID-19 pandemic.
"This was intended to be a love letter to frontline workers, health care workers, to let them feel very seen and heard right now," Wyle said. "'ER' was a wonderful depiction of health care in America pre-COVID, but there hadn't really been a show that was addressing what was happening post-COVID yet."
Wyle said he is thankful for his mom, who he jokingly said has always been there to ensure accuracy.
"She's got a whole army out there working on her behalf to point out my discrepancies," he said.
"He always says that I called him at 11:01 p.m. and told him what he did wrong. Now since, through the internet, now he has about 16 million moms who can tell him," Wyle-Katz added.
"I want to tell you how much I admire Noah, and all the people on "The Pitt," for bringing health care to the forefront and all the crises happening now in our health care system and for making their show a platform for change," she said.
