Nurse Duped by Radio DJs in Kate Middleton Phone Prank Commits Suicide
A nurse who transferred a prank phone call from two Australian radio presenters about the Duchess of Cambridge has died in a suspected suicide – two days after being duped.
The body of Jacintha Saldanha, who was working on the switchboard, was found at an address yards away from King Edward VII Hospital, where she worked, just before 9.30am today.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge issued a statement saying they are ‘deeply saddened’ by the tragedy and said they had not made a complaint, adding: ‘Their thoughts and prayers are with Jacintha Saldanha’s family, friends and colleagues at this very sad time.’
‘On the contrary we offered our full and heartfelt support to the nurses involved and hospital staff at all times.’
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image courtesy shutterstock / Steve Ikeguchi
Related at PJ Lifestyle:
And the Australian media is rallying ’round the two DJs who pulled the prank. A columnist for News.Com.AU twists herself into knots today saying it wasn’t the DJ’s fault.
The Sydney Morning Herald notes that: “As late as 5pm UK time yesterday (Friday), more than seven hours after Mrs Saldanha’s death, 2Day FM’s website was still plugging its royal scoop” The station was continuously-rebroadcasting the call which stomped the nurse’s sense of honor in the dirt.
At one time, I wanted to move to Australia. That was decades ago and under different career circumstances, but now I’m glad I didn’t.
Much of the youth of that nation have taken the traditional Aussie independence and stripped away everything relating to personal responsibility.
– will visit them soon.
There are few things as unfunny as the “comedy” of radio DJs. God, the way they chuckle and giggle at themselves! Meanwhile, I roll my eyes, switch them off and put on some good music.
I’ve never cared for so-called practical jokes, they’re too often a cover for mean-spirited behavior. That said, there’s something about this incident and the universal hue & cry against the Australian DJs that makes me wonder what else is going on here. It’s impossible to know another person’s mind, but it seems such a monumental overreaction on her part. It’s not as if she made a medication error and killed someone. I can understand her feeling humiliated, but to the point of no longer wanting to live? This is a woman with young children – egregious as this prank may be, many people have faced public humiliation and still found reasons to go on living. If a mother of young children finds none, then I strongly suspect she was already hovering near the abyss and this just happened to be the thing that pushed her over the edge.
There is another possible factor that hasn’t been touched on in any of the press reports. I’ve never worked in the UK but here in the US patient privacy is a major issue in hospitals, sometimes to the exclusion of everything else. I have seen people fired on the spot for simply e-mailing friends on other wards that a certain celebrity was their patient (and this in an SEIU controlled workplace btw, where incompetence is usually dealt with by transfer or, worse yet, promotion). The fact this nurse would discuss a patient’s condition at length over the phone to anyone who calls in just because he claims to be a family member would be considered unprofessional in any healthcare environment I’ve worked in, and I wonder if she wasn’t called on the administrative carpet over the incident. She would have been here, no question about it.
That nurse did was NOT the one who divulged details of Kate’s condition.
Jacintha Saldanha happened to be filling in at the reception desk, in the hours before the day shift arrived. All she did was accept the alleged identities and transfer the call.
Regarding accepting the fake accents, she might have been well-trained as a nurse but she grew up in India. She didn’t move to the UK until after she married. She could easily have been fooled by a put-on accent which wouldn’t get past an English/Welsh/Scottish Brit.
There are other suppositions in your comment which I will leave alone. You might want to check facts before you spout off again.
“There are other suppositions in your comment which I will leave alone. You might want to check facts before you spout off again.”
Keep your snide insinuations. If you’ve got a problem with something specific I wrote, then say so.
“This is a woman with young children” … check out the photographs of her children.
“it seems such a monumental overreaction” … You are American. So am I, but have had quite a bit of contact with Brits and Indians over the decades. Americans (especially the younger we are) don’t understand the concept of “honor” in the same way they do.
“I strongly suspect she was already hovering near the abyss” … multiple news accounts describe her in a different light. Given your repeated comments about “young” children, I would assume that you haven’t seen those.
16-year-old son, 14-year-old daughter.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/nri/other-news/Death-of-nurse-fooled-by-RJs-appals-UK-India/articleshow/17539412.cms
The pictures of the kids aren’t in this article, but the ages are.
“The fact this nurse would discuss a patient’s condition at length over the phone to anyone who calls in …”
That right there sounds like a VERY snide accusation. It could, in fact, be taken as libelous.
What’s strikingly obvious is how the station and its corporate parent are sanctimoniously protecting their rice bowl.
An ABC media-watch person makes an interesting point. The station is very popular with the 15-to-25 year-old crowd. Its DJs and management have been deliberately treading as close as possible to the line for years.
Now they’re claiming that merely because they’ve been doing it for years, it’s perfectly okay.
A columnist for the Melbourne Herald Sun says, don’t blame the DJs … (wait for it) … blame the radio stations’ management
It’s 10PM central time on the 8th, and the newspaper articles from Sydney on the 9th are hilarious.
The corporate parent’s Board will hold an emergency meeting on “Sunday afternoon” — possibly right about now. They oversee the CEO who’s been repeatedly saying that the kids did nothing wrong.
http://www.smh.com.au/business/media-and-marketing/prank-call-crisis-engulfs-station-20121209-2b386.html
In another SMH article, the corporation says the 2 DJs are in a “fragile” state of mind and undergoing “intensive psychological counseling.”
http://www.smh.com.au/national/fragile-sydney-djs-getting-intense-counselling-20121209-2b36q.html
Having read a great deal on their background, especially the guy’s, I doubt that very much. Perhaps it’s just my cynicism, but this sounds like a defensive gambit by the corporation.
Yes, the kids probably are in anguish over their careers having been wrecked, but both exhibit strong symptoms of narcissism. I would be very surprised if they feel anything at all for the nurse. Yesterday, I saw other Aussie papers saying this whole thing is being created by the British press. This is probably similar to what the kids believe — that they’re victims.
Their show targeted the 15-to-25 year-old age group. That was what they were hired to do. Go figure what such “media personalities” are most-likely to be like.
It’s about respect, and recognition of the importance of honor. The DJs are typical of the ‘media’, who by joking around, at the same time trample on respect for others, especially for those who are famous and who can’t fight back (ie, the Royals). They are trash, and want a world where only trash reigns.
Sunday Telegraph: Austereo’s board (which oversees the CEO, who’d blathered previously that nothing wrong was done) decided upon a review of “broadcast processes” and a letter to the hospital promising to cooperate fully with investigations.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-20657114
They are doing it again. The Board is trying to preserve a cash-cow by doing the minimum. The “media” is trying to wriggle through this bloody inconvenient mess. They figure if they can stiff-arm the tabloids until the next hot story breaks, they’re home free. That’s all it is to those who ultimately control that corporation (which owns 80-odd Aussie stations.)
They may not actually WANT a world where “only trash” reigns, but they will get it.
My Bad — it’s the BBC.
Deepest apologies to the Telegraph.
Joke? Prank? Practical joke?
What’s the “story/newflash” that ruins the lives of complete unknowns when done by a confessed right-wing commentator to the bienpensant club of “ethical broadcasters” and “journalists” called who published the “story”. Picked up to be broadcast/published world-wide?
How many millions are the DJs hoping and sorry to say probably to make from their “story”?
It just keeps getting more sordid. Look at the last seven lines/paragraphs of this article on news.com.au. (This is Aussie-land, not the UK. As a group, the Aussie media have been tending to soft-pedal the story.)
http://www.news.com.au/world/radio-hosts-mel-greig-and-michael-christian-sorry-but-not-ready-to-face-public/story-fndir2ev-1226533223652
Vicious prank calls are SOP at that station, and maybe at the parent corporation, too.
“They just want you to be talked about – they don’t care whether it’s good or bad.”
It is perfectly possible to play practical jokes that are not at all mean-spirited — it takes a bit more work sometimes, but if not hurting other people is a priority to you, you put in the extra effort, and it does get appreciated. (Basically, you play your prank in such a way that it’s clear from the outset that no one’s getting hurt.)
Concerning people who, professionally, call up complete strangers and humiliate them for laughs and ratings, I was about to say “get a life”. But it appears that they just took one.
An apology for having hijacked the thread … and a closing comment.
IMHO, Monday’s Christian/Greig interviews show a definite level of sincerity on their part, but also strongly suggest that they were under the corporation’s influence. They seemingly ducked questions regarding the station’s internal processes. British tabloids leaped upon this as evidence of their guilt. I think not. Austereo would undoubtedly have “told” them to cool it regarding implicating the station in wrongdoing. The station and parent corporation were the only “friends” Christian and Greig had at that point. Go figure. The distraught DJs would have obeyed.
Austereo appears to have botched its PR. Doofus-time. Jumping up and down upon their corporate whang. (Sorry for the imagery, ladies.) And article in one of the Aussie papers beats the ever-living stuffing out of the station and corporation on this. Everything I’ve seen supports that. The station and corporation are single-minded idiots, though very good at getting ratings.
These idiots appear to have become accustomed to an utter lack of concern for the feelings of those whom their prank calls targeted. I readily grant that the outcome of this particular call couldn’t have been predicted. But in the larger sense, it was only a matter of time until one of their calls ran across someone who couldn’t live with the dishonor that the station forced upon him or her.
When that finally happened, self-righteous Austereo was like a deer in the headlights — utterly clueless regarding the underlying moral/ethical issues. All they could whimper was ‘but we didn’t do anything illegal’.
That is highly questionable, as they didn’t get the hospital’s permission to air the tape. I sincerely hope that mistake bankrupts 2Day FM and forces Austereo to close it.
To their credit, Christian and Greig are, I believe, in torment. I pray that they find Grace.
The station and corporation (and the “tabloid media” in general, including that in the UK) appear to be at a far … far lower level. They still haven’t a clue.