I heard about the story, I didn’t hear about the aftermath!
The apparent suicide of Jacintha Saldanha, the nurse who inadvertently put through a prank call to the hospital ward where the Duchess of Cambridge was staying, has provoked outrage, sadness and demands for retribution in all corners of the media.
Now both because it was the UK, and a nurse which even here in the states is generally a pretty anti-gun group, also women tend to shy away from guns as suicide methods, I think we can assume this horrible suicide was not with a gun.
Still I wanted to probe the bigger issue:
The tragedy has revived memories of previous practical jokes that have gone horribly wrong, but also stirred an already febrile debate on ethical boundaries, whether in the mainstream or social media, and what, if any, legal recourse should be available to people humiliated or taunted in public.
Now first up, the DJs did a total dick move here, and they should face some reprimand, but suicide is a personal issue so they are not directly to blame. As for the breaching of the hospitals privacy protections, I actually am FOR this, as any old oddball may be tempted to glean information about patients, and even if they aren’t royalty or celebrities their information needs to be protected. This event exposed a HUGE flaw in the system of protections.
h/t Wallphone
I sorta disagree with your statement about the DJs. I heard the interview with the young nurse on the radio, then heard that the nurse had committed suicide, then realised that the girl on the radio, the ones the DJs were taking the Mickey out of, was not the one who committed suicide.
The nurse who committed suicide merely put the call through to another nurse, who ended up on radio.
Ja, look, it’s a prank that went too far, certainly, but I don’t think the DJs could reasonably have thought that this would happen. And as far as I can tell they are feeling pretty damn shitty about it. But it wasn’t their fault.