TW SUICIDE: Nurse who died after royal baby prank call committed suicide
4:36 pm - 12/12/2012
The nurse found dead after a hoax call to the hospital treating the pregnant Duchess of Cambridge was found hanged, the Guardian understands.
Jacintha Saldanha, 46, a mother of two from Bristol, was discovered unconscious at her nurses' flat near the private King Edward VII hospital in central London on Friday morning.
A postmortem has been carried out, with the results expected to be officially announced at the opening of the inquest into her death on Thursday morning at Westminster coroners court.
The Guardian confirmed a report on Sky News that she had been found hanged. Scotland Yard would not comment on the reports.
Saldanha was the nurse who answered a hoax call to the hospital from two Australian radio DJs in the early hours of Tuesday last week, just hours after the Duchess of Cambridge was admitted for acute morning sickness.
The nurse, who had worked at the hospital for more than four years, was discovered at around 9.30am on Friday morning. Reports that she left a suicide note have not been confirmed.
The death is not being treated as suspicious, and the inquest is expected to be opened and adjourned on Thursday as inquiries continue.
The family of the nurse are set to receive more than £350,000 from Southern Cross Austereo, the parent company of the Sydney station 2Day FM, whose presenters rang the hospital inquiring about the duchess's medical condition and posing as the Queen and Prince of Wales.
Saldanha is understood to be the nurse who answered the call, then, believing she was talking to members of the royal family, transferred it to a duty nurse on the duchess's ward.
The DJs, Mel Greig and Michael Christian, have spoken of their devastation over the "unforeseen consequences" of the call. Both are off air at the moment. The station has cancelled its Christmas party, and pledged to donate profits from advertising until the end of the year to a fund to help Saldanha's family.
The hospital has set up a memorial fund to help support her husband and two teenage children.
A Scotland Yard spokesman said on Wednesday the postmortem result "would be announced tomorrow at the inquest".
Source
Jacintha Saldanha, 46, a mother of two from Bristol, was discovered unconscious at her nurses' flat near the private King Edward VII hospital in central London on Friday morning.
A postmortem has been carried out, with the results expected to be officially announced at the opening of the inquest into her death on Thursday morning at Westminster coroners court.
The Guardian confirmed a report on Sky News that she had been found hanged. Scotland Yard would not comment on the reports.
Saldanha was the nurse who answered a hoax call to the hospital from two Australian radio DJs in the early hours of Tuesday last week, just hours after the Duchess of Cambridge was admitted for acute morning sickness.
The nurse, who had worked at the hospital for more than four years, was discovered at around 9.30am on Friday morning. Reports that she left a suicide note have not been confirmed.
The death is not being treated as suspicious, and the inquest is expected to be opened and adjourned on Thursday as inquiries continue.
The family of the nurse are set to receive more than £350,000 from Southern Cross Austereo, the parent company of the Sydney station 2Day FM, whose presenters rang the hospital inquiring about the duchess's medical condition and posing as the Queen and Prince of Wales.
Saldanha is understood to be the nurse who answered the call, then, believing she was talking to members of the royal family, transferred it to a duty nurse on the duchess's ward.
The DJs, Mel Greig and Michael Christian, have spoken of their devastation over the "unforeseen consequences" of the call. Both are off air at the moment. The station has cancelled its Christmas party, and pledged to donate profits from advertising until the end of the year to a fund to help Saldanha's family.
The hospital has set up a memorial fund to help support her husband and two teenage children.
A Scotland Yard spokesman said on Wednesday the postmortem result "would be announced tomorrow at the inquest".
Source
Firstly, she would have been taken off post, and had a meeting with her line manager, hospital head and someone taking notes, because they'd have set up a paper trail in order to protect themselves (in case they had to dismiss her especially if the Royal family came down on them hard, because the hospital was known to look after members of The Royal family, and I'm sure that the heads wouldn't have wanted to lose their patronage). If nothing else, her action would have had a disciplinary, mention on her file. In addition, because people don't really want to 'catch' what you have (seriously, when it comes to being on the wrong side of cooperate interest, rightly or wrongly, you're a pariah) I'd be surprised if people might have distanced themselves from her.
On top of that, the call was played on BBC, and linked to in The Daily Mail as well as other newspapers online (which to be fair, seems legit- a lot of people would have wanted to know the context of the nurse being duped). So you'd have had the nurse's voice online, being repeated for everyone to hear. Over and over again.
The woman was known for having a very 'nervous' personality, and being
high strungsensitive, according to people who knew her, so she would have taken the news hard. In addition, if she wanted to leave that job and go and apply for another one, this mistake would have followed her around (seriously, it would have done).Another thing, is that the woman's family lived in Bristol (about ninety minutes away from London, iirc) and she stayed in nurses' lodgings in the week, which might have been another emotional burden. So I can just imagine what with her thinking about her job, her just being in her nurses quarters (and being unable to leave because she was under investigation) for doing her job (filling in at around 05:30 am because the receptionist wouldn't have been in for at least another three hours), and yeah, I can understand why she would have done what she did.
Didn't know about how she took her life though; but I was curious, considering they said that it wasn't suspicious.
Edited at 2012-12-13 11:22 am (UTC)
Yeah, this. It's one thing doing a Bart Simpson and calling a bar looking for Iwanna wank, but you're calling a hospital where sick people are? Just... what?
My thoughts go out to the nurse and her family.
Trigger warning
One of the girls I coached choose his method and her mother was the one who found her. I would give everything I have not to know his information (I threw up when told, as I'm told did a number of others) The mental picture I have of her dying and her poor, poor mother finding her are forever ether in my brain and this is not info that should be publically released.
Edited at 2012-12-14 04:19 am (UTC)
Glad to hear their advertisers are leaving in droves.
Edited at 2012-12-13 08:31 am (UTC)
IMO, pulling this kind of shit at a hospital just isn't funny. It's appalling how assholes from the media think they can do whatever the fuck they want, screw with anyones' lives to get the news they want.
The DJs knew full well that the hospital staff would get the blame for letting the lapse happen. They can't say they didn't know about the shit-storm it would cause, when they released sensitive information about the Royal Family, because that's what happens every time. They should be held responsible, and shouldn't be able to buy their way out of this.
Not sure if you implied this or not, but I just want to point out that calling a political figure and pretending to be another political figure is different than calling a hospital and pretending to a current patient's family member. Whether or not Kate Middleton is a "public" or "private" figure, tricking hospital workers (who are private figures) is boneheaded.