scrubbedexpat141

So, who else saw all this over the weekend?

Tragic that the lady has killed herself. General finger pointing by the media is at the Aussie radio show/presenters who put the hoax call in to the hospital....which this lady then transferred.

Can they be 'blamed'?
Was it just the final straw for her?
Was she getting any unwanted attention for doing it?

Not sure where I sit on this, what do you lot think?

NorthernLad

I assume she had other issues going on, this was the final straw.

Think whatever you like of the royals, making a 'prank' call to someone who is sick in hospital is wrong and now they are facing the consequences of a cheap laugh.

If it were my wife in hospital sick and someone played a 'joke' I'd be ****ing fuming and want someone to be help to account.

scrubbedexpat141

Of course, I agree 100%.

But do you think the finger of blame can point at the Aussies who rang up?

NorthernLad

Not for the suicide. I don't think anyone could have predicted the outcome, but actions have consequences and the two Aussies will have to live with being labelled as contributing to her suicide.

Millhouse

A tragic event as a result of an innocent but stupid prank - The kind of prank I would get caught up in if I'm going to be totally honest, but no more than you hear on the radio here (and at home) all the time.

The bit of detail that is being overlooked here is that the DJs played the recording to their lawyers before they aired it. The lawyers approved it. I'm not saying this mitigates any blame, but it does change the allocation a bit.

scrubbedexpat141

I'm the same, I made a prank call once to a woman and it back-fired monumentally. Fortunately I had an amazing boss who took the hit, pretended to fire me and things to stop her going to the papers.

You can get caught up in an idea and get carried away very easily.

Interesting that it was pre-approved though, that surely gives the presenters some credibility that they checked out the boundaries they were pushing first?

The Dean

Plenty of conspiracy-theory-material here, if you want it.......... the nurse is said to have revealed quite detailed and confidential information - what was it?

Why was Kate in hospital at all? 'Severe' morning sickness? Or something more complicated? Or more significant? Why did Kate look fine the day before the pregnancy announcement (playing hockey at her old school)? Shouldn't something so significant have been announced with loads of fanfare, press day with photographers officially present, etc?

Now that the rules of succession have changed, the hospital may have been testing to see if she is carrying a girl (also, I see twins have been suggested).

If it's a girl - will Kate want to name her after her mum? Can Britain afford a Queen Carol? Before that (i.e. immediately after she is born), she will apparently be officially known as Lady Carol Mountbatten-Windsor........ which I like, actually..............

Eeyore

Oh, I'm sure the nutters will be speculating like fury over this. After all, the official explanation (which is also the simplest and most rational and, indeed, most likely) can't possibly be correct, can it?

From memory, previous royal pregnancies (including those that led to William and Harry) weren't announced like that, so there's no real reason to believe that this one should have been any different. Royals typically have photocalls for engagements and to present babies to the public, but not to announce pregnancies.

If Kate hadn't needed treatment for this condition, I imagine they would have waited the standard 12 weeks before making an announcement. But they were fully aware that there was no way they could keep her hospitalisation a secret, so it made sense to go public early to try and keep wild speculation in check as far as possible.

No need for a hospital stay to do that, it can be determined with a simple test of the mother's blood from 7 weeks. And why would they bother anyway, given that the baby will inherit the throne regardless of gender?

But as you say, plenty of conspiracy-theory material for the nutcases to get excited about.

al dente

She was scared about losing her job and was facing international, hugely public, humiliation, it was a little more than a final straw. Imagine everyone knowing that you ****ed something up, especially as she appeared to take such pride in being a nurse in a royal hospital. All she did was transfer the call as the main reception people weren't in yet (5.30am).

The aussie idiots were just that, but they would have known that releasing a pre recorded successful prank call would have consequences (disciplinary) for the medical staff but didn't care. I don't think they expected to be successful in getting through, but once they had and they knew enough to check it with the lawyers they accept some responsibility but the lawyers do too.

Anyone trying to ring for information about loved ones in hospital now is going to be stonewalled. I think the pair of them are dicks but then prank calls leave me cold generally. Now a bit of slapstick, walking into lamposts etc is the humiliation that I find hilarious!

al dente

Exactly regarding the gender but it's not a simple blood test at 7 weeks unless there has been a dramatic leap in medicine since I had my last child, less than a year ago. You can have a CVS (8 inch needle) direct into the uterus to harvest cells (at a risk of 1-2% causing a spontaneous miscarriage), from 10 weeks.

Eeyore

That's already very common in the UK. Confidentiality rules mean that most hospitals won't give out information about patients over the phone, because anybody can call a hospital claiming to be a relative...

Eeyore

From August last year - Test can tell foetal sex at 7 weeks, study says

al dente

Well there you go! There has been a leap

The Dean

"Foetal sex"???

Is that like child porn, only even more perverted...???

Blue Cat

I heard about this over the weekend, terrible tragedy and now two children have no Mother BUT she must have been somewhat fragile as I can't see how what she did would have made her want to commit suicide?