UK - Nurse duped by prankster regarding royal, found dead.

[gngr~snap]

Saldanha's body was discovered Friday morning in the nurses' quarters around the corner from the hospital...

http://m.usatoday.com/article/news/1758657?articlePage=0

Was this woman an employee of the hospital or did she work for an temp agency ?
I am curious because it doesn't sound like she lived in the same part of England

Has anyone heard?

ETA: The hospital was in Marylebone and she lived in Bristol.
The hospital looks to be about 120 miles from her home .
http://m.theaustralian.com.au/news/...role-from-family/story-fnb64oi6-1226534328645
I believe she had worked there for 4 yrs so I guess she stayed in the nurses quarters due to the distance

 

[Amber34]

There are similar broadcasting laws in Australia. They are also supposed to get permission. The prank was not live either. They taped it, and supposedly got it approved by the station's lawyer before broadcasting it.

The Australian radio station at the centre of the UK royal hospital hoax death says it tried to contact the nurses involved to seek permission to broadcast the taped conversation.

Sydney station 2DayFM said at least five attempts were made.

BBC News


So they managed to get through to the hospital without too much trouble to make the prank call, but 5 subsequent attempts to get permission to air the recording from those involved, all failed? And then, despite not having permission, they went ahead and aired it anyway.

I realise the DJ's were 'just doing their jobs', but as part of their jobs they should be totally aware of where the line is that should not be crossed. That goes for their station manager and anyone else who was involved in OKing the call for broadcast.

I'm afraid blaming the nurse for how she did her job does not wash with me. What was she to do? Call out the Queen because her voice didn't sound quite right? Put the call through to the hospital's 'Prank Detection Dept'?

If you go to see a stand up comedian and sit near the front, without doubt, you know fine well you have more than a small chance of being the butt of their jokes.

If you are a nurse answering the phone in a private hospital the last thing you would expect is to be the centre of a very public joke.

Are the DJs to blame for Jacintha taking her own life? No, they can't take the rap for that

Are they to blame for causing the public humiliation and distress that made her feel she could not go on? Oh yeah

 

[dotr]

Interesting stuff from Guardian's Mark Lawson; among other things, traces the rise of the media hoax:

Australian hoax DJs: where do you draw the line with on-air pranks?

From that very good and balanced article...
"One line of defence from the radio station is that the hoax call was expected to fail, resulting in a brief squib of a posh receptionist knocking back the Aussie interlopers. But would that have been a good enough joke even to earn brief airtime? And the moral – and potentially legal – vulnerability of the broadcasters in this regard is that they had stumbled into one of the few areas of life that has remained largely closed to media intrusion in Britain: medical confidentiality"

 

[jjenny]

Saldanha's body was discovered Friday morning in the nurses' quarters around the corner from the hospital...

http://m.usatoday.com/article/news/1758657?articlePage=0

Was this woman an employee of the hospital or did she work for an temp agency ?
I am curious because it doesn't sound like she lived in the same part of England

Has anyone heard?

ETA: The hospital was in Marylebone and she lived in Bristol.
The hospital looks to be about 120 miles from her home .
http://m.theaustralian.com.au/news/...role-from-family/story-fnb64oi6-1226534328645
I believe she had worked there for 4 yrs so I guess she stayed in the nurses quarters due to the distance

Hospital has living arrangement for the nurses. She lived there during her work shift. She was going to then head home between her shifts.

 

[hoshizora]

Hi guys, I'm Australian so hopefully my post will be helpful.

I do not feel the DJs should be responsible for this. HOWEVER, I don't think the nurse should either (RIP). This radio network that their show runs on called the Today Network owned by Austereo. It is Australia wide with different names in each state. Usually the shows broadcast nationwide but there are some that are local, so they're nearly identical. The Today network is called 92.9 in Perth (where I live) and it's 2DayFM in Sydney, for example.

Anyway, my point is that the Today network/Austereo were behind this stunt because they organised it, the DJs just executed it and have been at the centre of much controversy, internationally and here. Remember the lie detector stunt, where they hooked a teen up to the lie detector and quizzed her about her sex life and she admitted she was raped? THIS WAS THE TODAY NETWORK. Same network, but different hosts and show. One of the DJs involved in that, Kyle Sandilands, is an awful human being who is always ranting on air about something. He's made a lot of rude comments. The latest one was where he threatened a journalist who gave his TV show a bad review - calling her a fat slag (*advertiser censored*) and making a lot of nasty appearance and sexist comments towards her. Point is, he is constantly doing really bad stuff and the Today network never fire him and don't even give him a slap on the wrist. You can read about him here Kyle Sandilands - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia They always get away with controversy and quite frankly, I've had enough.

I believe it is time for the Today network to learn a lesson. I looked up the Codes of Practices for radio, and they are in breach of one of the codes

CODE OF PRACTICE 6:
INTERVIEWS AND TALKBACK PROGRAMS
Purpose
6.1 A licensee must not broadcast the words of an identifiable person unless:
(a) that person has been informed in advance or a reasonable person would be aware that the words may be broadcast; or
(b) in the case of words which have been recorded without the knowledge of the person, that person has subsequently, but prior to the broadcast, expressed consent to the broadcast of the words.
The purpose of this Code is to prevent the unauthorised broadcast of statements by identifiable persons.

http://www.acma.gov.au/webwr/aba/co...cial_radio-codes_and_guidelines_5sept2011.pdf

This woman was identifiable as Kate's nurse, therefore I believe they are in breach of the code.

I am totally sick of the Today network and I will be filing a complaint with the ACMA (Australian Communications and Media Authority) because I feel they need to learn a lesson once and for all.

I encourage any other Australian reading this to do the same.

 

[~n/t~]

Excellent article in my opinion and her words express exactly how I feel about this whole tragic case.

DiManno: Nurse in royal prank call was victim of a cruel culture

The unwitting and the witless — and nobody’s laughing now.

In truth, it was never remotely funny, that moronic prank pulled by a couple of jester Australian radio disc jockeys on a London hospital where the Duchess of Cambridge was being treated for acute morning sickness.

The real sickness here is what passes for humour these days: The snark, the mean poke, the gotcha gouge, the juvenile punking. We are, it seems, endlessly captivated by the embarrassment inflicted on others, the shamier the better.

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/a...oyal-prank-call-was-victim-of-a-cruel-culture

 

[Elley Mae]

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie...ME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-12-11-07-41-30

Experts: Station's royal hoax call may be illegal

Last week's prank was widely condemned days after it aired, after the still-unexplained death of a nurse who answered the phone and helped two DJs get confidential information about the former Kate Middleton's health.

bbm

 

[cityslick]

BBC News


So they managed to get through to the hospital without too much trouble to make the prank call, but 5 subsequent attempts to get permission to air the recording from those involved, all failed? And then, despite not having permission, they went ahead and aired it anyway.

I realise the DJ's were 'just doing their jobs', but as part of their jobs they should be totally aware of where the line is that should not be crossed. That goes for their station manager and anyone else who was involved in OKing the call for broadcast.

I'm afraid blaming the nurse for how she did her job does not wash with me. What was she to do? Call out the Queen because her voice didn't sound quite right? Put the call through to the hospital's 'Prank Detection Dept'?

If you go to see a stand up comedian and sit near the front, without doubt, you know fine well you have more than a small chance of being the butt of their jokes.

If you are a nurse answering the phone in a private hospital the last thing you would expect is to be the centre of a very public joke.

Are the DJs to blame for Jacintha taking her own life? No, they can't take the rap for that

Are they to blame for causing the public humiliation and distress that made her feel she could not go on? Oh yeah

There are two issues going on with this story. One is the prank itself, which I agree was in poor taste but to be honest is pretty tame compared to some other shock jock pranks (see Howard Stern). As far as crossing the line goes, I'm failing to see how you draw that line. Again I hear much worse stuff on the air in the US. I think 'the line' would be something where the radio host actually makes a person do something that in term causes them harm/death (this happened a few years ago when a show was awarding a Wii and made someone drink gallons of water to where they drowned).

The second issue is with the nurse. Did the nurse commit suicide because she felt that the DJ's humiliated her? Or did she commit suicide because she knows that she violated protocol and hospital policy by transferring a call without verifying the caller. I think that's the story that's not getting as much attention here. Anybody can call a hospital if they know a celebrity is staying there to try to get info (and I'm sure it's been done many times) but last I checked nurses (or even doctors) can't give patient information over the phone without some sort of check.

Even when you look at the situation as a whole, the notion that the Prince and Queen Elisabeth would actually call themselves at the same time to get information on Kate seems pretty ridiculous. Maybe the nurse realized this error and things went downhill from there.

 

[Cherwell]

When queen calls (or somebody claiming to be a queen) people will try to be accommodating. I am sure the woman didn't expect it to be a hoax.

Even when you look at the situation as a whole, the notion that the Prince and Queen Elisabeth would actually call themselves at the same time to get information on Kate seems pretty ridiculous. Maybe the nurse realized this error and things went downhill from there.

I'm going to make this point again, because it seems to have gone unnoticed.

In the initial part of the call, in which Greig spoke to Mrs Saldanha, she did not state that she was the Queen. She simply asked to speak to "my granddaughter". The Queen is not Kate's grandmother, so why would Mrs Saldanha have had any reason to think that the caller was the Queen?

It's clear from the subsequent exchange with the second nurse that Greig intended to pass herself off as the Queen, but due to her ignorance she effectively told Mrs Saldanha that she was Kate's grandmother. And I think that is why she was put through without any suspicion that it was a hoax. Mrs Saldanha probably thought that it was Kate's grandmother.

NB In fact both of Kate's grandmothers are deceased, but I didn't know this until I looked into it, and I don't suppose the average person would know this either.

 

[belimom]

Excellent article in my opinion and her words express exactly how I feel about this whole tragic case.

DiManno: Nurse in royal prank call was victim of a cruel culture



http://www.thestar.com/news/world/a...oyal-prank-call-was-victim-of-a-cruel-culture

I agree, but I don't believe the DJ's were trying to be cruel to someone, as much as they were trying to see if they could get through to Kate. In accomplishing that goal, someone was stepped on in the process - two nurses - but I don't believe the end goal of the DJ's was to see who they could make a fool out of. I think that's where different 'thicknesses of skin' come in. I can't even listen to shock-jocks b/c it's just not my style - Howard Stern and the like sicken me. OTOH, my DH listens every morning on the way to work. It's just that those shock-jocks don't realize that others may not be able to take pranks as lightly as they may do themselves.

 

[Donjeta]

I'm going to make this point again, because it seems to have gone unnoticed.

In the initial part of the call, in which Greig spoke to Mrs Saldanha, she did not state that she was the Queen. She simply asked to speak to "my granddaughter". The Queen is not Kate's grandmother, so why would Mrs Saldanha have had any reason to think that the caller was the Queen?

It's clear from the subsequent exchange with the second nurse that Greig intended to pass herself off as the Queen, but due to her ignorance she effectively told Mrs Saldanha that she was Kate's grandmother. And I think that is why she was put through without any suspicion that it was a hoax. Mrs Saldanha probably thought that it was Kate's grandmother.

NB In fact both of Kate's grandmothers are deceased, but I didn't know this until I looked into it, and I don't suppose the average person would know this either.

Maybe sleep deprived brain? It seems hardly likely that the Queen would call Kate at 5.30 am anyway.

 

[Cherwell]

I don't believe the DJ's were trying to be cruel to someone, as much as they were trying to see if they could get through to Kate.

And you don't think it's cruel to harass a young woman who is feeling very ill, in the early stages of her first pregnancy, at 5.30 am?

 

[Cherwell]

Maybe sleep deprived brain? It seems hardly likely that the Queen would call Kate at 5.30 am anyway.

I don't follow you. There was absolutely nothing that suggested that the caller was the Queen, or was claiming to be the Queen. Only after the call had been transferred to the second nurse.

 

[Donjeta]

I don't follow you. There was absolutely nothing that suggested that the caller was the Queen, or was claiming to be the Queen. Only after the call had been transferred to the second nurse.

I'm just saying that sleep deprivation is one factor that may cloud judgement and make people jump into unwarranted conclusions.

I don't even know if the first nurse thought it was the queen or if she just transferred the call routinely?

It might come down to expectations. It must have been a notable event to have Kate Middleton as the patient and there could have been an element of "OMG, what if the royals come to visit, what if the Queen calls" and then someone calls and a foggy brain near the end of the shift makes the connection although in broad daylight it might make no sense.

 

[Cherwell]

I'm just saying that sleep deprivation is one factor that may cloud judgement and make people jump into unwarranted conclusions.

I don't even know if the first nurse thought it was the queen or if she just transferred the call routinely?

It might come down to expectations. It must have been a notable event to have Kate Middleton as the patient and there could have been an element of "OMG, what if the royals come to visit, what if the Queen calls" and then someone calls and a foggy brain near the end of the shift makes the connection although in broad daylight it might make no sense.

Don't you think that if someone calls and effectively says she is Kate's grandmother, you would be likely to assume that she was Kate's grandmother? Or would you assume it was the Queen, who is not Kate's grandmother?

I think it's most likely that she took the caller at face value.

 

[Donjeta]

Don't you think that if someone calls and effectively says she is Kate's grandmother, you would be likely to assume that she was Kate's grandmother? Or would you assume it was the Queen, who is not Kate's grandmother?

I think it's most likely that she took the caller at face value.

Well I don't know obviously but all the news reports seem to think she mistook the caller for the Queen and since the hospital admins apparently were able to talk to her before she died I would think they have some idea what she thought.

She seems to have been in England long enough to be aware of how Kate Middleton came to belong in the Royal family but I suppose it's possible that there are people who don't follow the royal news and aren't quite up to speed as to who is related to whom. And there may be things you know in broad daylight but don't manage to think about at 5.30 am at the end of your shift. The thought process is "grandmother of a princess -> a royalty" and the knowledge of her real background gets shortcircuited, as well as the question, why on earth is this person calling my patient at this hour, whoever it is.

Either way, nurses shouldn't talk about their patients' health with their grandmothers or their mothers-in-law unless with the patient's permission and never without verifying the caller's identity. (Kate might possibly have given them the OK to give information to the Queen but she wouldn't have given them the permission to give information to her grandmother, if both grandmothers are dead.) But I can see how, if the nurses thought it was a member of the royal family calling, it might have made them more hesitant to challenge their right to have information or to ask the caller questions.

I wonder if the staff at this ward had had any kind of briefing as to what to expect and how to treat the privacy concerns in case of a high- profile patient.

 

[songline]

This is so tragic. While I think that falling victim to such a widely publicized hoax would be a terrible thing to endure, this nurse must have had some underlying issues to take her life over it. My heart goes out to her family and to all involved.

It seems that the Palace was not overly concerned and was supportive of the hospital and the nurse, and I'm sure the DJ's meant to no harm.

It's just very very sad all around.

Thank you, exactly how I think. She was not balanced.
If not this, something else would have made her suicidal at another time.
She was clearly not balanced. JMO

 

[songline]

while it would be a sick prank i almost wish the news would report the nurse's suicide was a retaliation prank on the DJs. "to teach them a lesson" but i know it probably isn't going to happen.

:waitasec: How do you teach someone a lesson by killing yourself :what:
Who thinks like this?

 

[songline]

i don't think so Kat, Sandiland is a shock jock, but this is a differt dude and dudess

:floorlaugh: Dudess - hmmm new word.... LOL

 

[songline]

BBM. I'm confused. Isn't she dead? I saw a post elsewhere stating it was the first nurse, the one who connected the call, but didn't divulge info, who is dead. Which is it?

First Nurse who took the call is dead.
Second nurse who gave info is alive. Thank God they did not both jump
out a window.
ME THINK that she had to be suicidal to begin with, embarrassment feels really bad,
but it is no cause to kill oneself.