Hoax call nurse suicide

Really, really sad on a personal level an avoidable death of a mother of 2 children, however a really complicated modern cultural issue.... what are your feelings about the moral / ethical / legal issues in this case? Unforeseeable tragedy, poor NHS management pratices, naive individual, negligent broadcasting, a laugh gone wrong....should anyone be accountable... Is this type of behaviour still acceptable... Should we be less tolerant as a society to this sort of behaviour from now on

Yeah, really sad news this. Can't blame it on the NHS though, it's a private hospital. But sounds like poor management, they shouldn't have had a nurse in the situation of handling outside calls.

Broadcasting pranks on unsuspecting members of the public have been around for donkeys years (anyone remember Candid Camera?), but possibly some of them have been trying to get more outrageous in recent years. Most of them I find just embarassing, but something like the Ross/Brand affair was certainly unacceptable. But arguably this one only turned unacceptable because of the largely unforeseen outcome - prior to that, it was just pretty unethically unfunny. But difficult to draw up any hard and fast rules about these things, as there is no black or white but a large amount of grey.

I'm sure the DJs will be held accountable and disciplined, not least because of the adverse publicity this will bring to the radio station.

I don't see a problem with 'Shock Jocks' and their telephone pranks. I am not a fan and I have even been an unwitting victim of a Red Dragon radio phone stunt (which fell flat on its arse) but I don't see a general problem with that type of thing. The Kate call shouldn't have been aired. I have no love for the Royals but the butt of the joke were the two nurses for believing the DJ's were the Queen and Prince Charles and I don't see why a radio station needed to humiliate two nurses doing a stressful job. They had procedures in place to review the content before airing it but those procedures let them down. It seems they only considered whether it was legal or not and did not look at who the target of the 'joke' was or, apparently, if it was even funny.

The media stations who are now wringing their hands and adopting the moral high ground were all quite content to air the original recording which appears to have added to the deceased's distress.

I thought it was a good hoax call because it always retained a sense of the absurd; it was always a hoax call not something more sinister. The hypocrisy and hand wringing of the UK media over this very sad tale beggars belief. They turned this into a sycophantic "how dreadful for the wonderful Royal Couple" sh!tstorm which clearly had a very negative impact on the nurse who took the original call at 5.00am and transferred it to the ward.
This tragedy is more about the negative impact of media sycophancy and the Royal Family than it is about a couple of Aussie DJ's trying to raise a laugh.
We are a very backward looking nation at times.

Nurses answer these calls all the time, I get them too working in the hospital lab even though our telephone number isn't publically available. We don't know how they get them but we're thoroughly trained to be aware that reporters, prank callers, and maybe something now sinister can get our number and will try and catch us off guard. I've had a couple myself I felt unsure about, and the golden rule is if you're not sure tell them you'll ring back once you've found out for them and put the phone down.

It is a criminal offence to impersonate someone on the telephone with the intent of getting a hold of confidential information. Deliberate prank or not, they would of broken a law if it happened in the UK, I'm just assuming Australia treat it differently.

The whole thing has been a joke. The arrogance of the press to make fun of the woman ever since it happened but then demand the dj's are punished when she kills herself is ridiculous.

Cheers lads... Measured and considered responses... I think this has very publicly highlighted a longstanding issue of corporate actions for the sake of mass 'entertainment' leading unintended individual consequences... If there is a guilty party for me it's the broadcaster but I personally think its a case of a system problem as no one was clear as to what was appropriate and inappropriate... I don't want this to sound like a management response but I truly believe that once someone had short circuited the system to commit a prank everyone acted with integrity and tried to do their best in the absence of well understood rules.... Unbelievably sad outcome for what was intended to entertain

I haven't been able to see much of the news over the past few days, but is it a fact that this woman committed suicide as a direct result of this prank? Or was it merely a coincidence?

The Hospital's chairman has publicly blamed the Australian ration station for the nurses death.

Valley Trash wrote:The Hospital's chairman has publicly blamed the Australian ration station for the nurses death.

Food shortages in Australia?

The radio station was saying this morning that it had followed its rules on this sort of thing and tried five times to phone the hospital to get permission to broadcast the hoax call. Evidently they didn't succeed but decided to broadcast anyway. There's responsible broadcasting for you.

My view is that it was just an ill advised hoax call. No-one could ever envisage it ending like this, so I'm quite annoyed at the people getting on their moral high ground and blaming the DJs.

As an aside, why have we still got a Royal family anyway? Surely in this day in age there shouldnt be people walking around with crowns on their head living in fucking palaces or castles or whatever, being paid by normal, working people to live such a privileged life. It's such an archaic regime and the sooner we get rid of it the better.

I can understand why someone killed themselves over it. It's career suicide to make that sort of mistake considering its a princess you are dealing with. It's probably also highly distressing seeing your name in every paper on the high street. No doubt, for a person of sound mind an overreaction, but I can sympathise as to it could push someone into that scenario.

The hoax was heartless and in a complete disregard as to what you would be doing to someone's career potentially. If what the Tonker said is true then the station should face heavy fines, and the DJ's should be sacked. The suicide while tragic was as I said completely unexpected, and therefore it wouldn't be fair to worsen the punishment because of it.

Red614 wrote:I can understand why someone killed themselves over it. It's career suicide to make that sort of mistake considering its a princess you are dealing with. It's probably also highly distressing seeing your name in every paper on the high street. No doubt, for a person of sound mind an overreaction, but I can sympathise as to it could push someone into that scenario.

The hoax was heartless and in a complete disregard as to what you would be doing to someone's career potentially. If what the Tonker said is true then the station should face heavy fines, and the DJ's should be sacked. The suicide while tragic was as I said completely unexpected, and therefore it wouldn't be fair to worsen the punishment because of it.

I have a difference of opinion. Whilst it was 5.00am and it would have been odd for the Queen and Prince Charles to have been making a call at that time and together, if you've worked a night shift the mind can play tricks at that time in the morning. Also, we have not been told what the Hospital call handling protocols were should you, as the receptionist of that call, be faced with the possibility that the Monarch of the Realm was at the end of the line.
It would take a brave soul to say "Leave it out love! It's five in the morning! Stop taking the p!ss!" or words to that effect.
According to the hospital, the nurse wasn't even mildly rebuked let alone hauled over the coals about this; suggesting she broke no protocols. Possibly.
If is this incident that has driven her to suicide and nothing else, then I would suggest it is the ludicrous level of frenzy that the press worked itself into over the prank call; sycophantly on behalf of the Royal Family.
The prank call was absurd not sinister.

Tbh, don't know y the djs r made to feel bad, and do We know she killed herself as a direct result of the call? And that somethin more sinister was goin on behind the scenes

The act of handing over the call to the wards without the patients prior approval is almost certainly a breach of the hospital protocols. It can be considered an acknowledgment that the individual in question is in fact in the hospital. This call occurred at 2am the night she was first admitted, there was still speculation as to whether she was there or not. It's in our protocol for handling this sort of thing, simply saying 'ill get a hold of the ward staff to let you know' is close enough to 'yes they are in the hospital getting treatment' for NHS management to charge you with breaking patient confidentiality. Even if it was indeed Prince Charles ringing to enquire, that doesn't mean the princess would want him to know they were there. And when anything involves a royal, multiply the severity by ten.