Royal Radio Prank Tragedy

[Jo Blose]

This is an interesting case:

Although the radio presenters have been put in the line of fire, the whole incident has opened a can of worms.

1. The Primary issue is the radio Station never let either of the nurses involed during the call, the call was a prank, and then never received consent from each of the nurses involved, for the prank call to be aired publicly. If consent had been sought from both nurses, it is foreseeable neither nurse would have granted consent and the call would never have aired, meaning only a handful of people would have been aware of the joke.

2. The Hospital, clearly had no protocols in place for phone calls requesting to be put through to the Duchess. Why would it have no protocols in place when one of it's patients is a high media profile member of the royal family? Mismanagement?

3. The nurse who took her life did not consent to it being publicly known she had been duped, helped compromise the privacy of a high media profile member of the British Royal family, unwittingly compromised the reputation of the hospital which employs her, and compromised the hospital having the honor of caring for members of the Royal Family in future.

4. It is likely the nurse suffered extreme sudden embarassment by the media attention, heckling and disdain from her work colleagues and employer, and even distress at the role she played in private and confidential information about the health of a royal being leaked. Anyone who has been to a hospital, knows nurses work long hours in an emergency environment and it is unfair to try and pull a stunt on one of them while they are working. Additionally, in Britain, the integrity of the Royal Family is generally held in extremely high regard with any compromise of that, harshly criticised.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. However, it is my opinion the radio Staion erred by acting irresponsibly and is accountable.

The radio presenters have stated the joke was meant to be on them with their silly accents, but failed to acknowledge the joke was suddenly on the nurses and the hospital itself when the nurses fell for their silly accents. When the phone call prank ended, the radio station had a responsibility to make contact with the hospital immediately to advise of the prank call out of common courtesy, so the fate of the phone call prank could be decided and the privacy breach might be addressed with hospital staff.

The question has to be asked, "If the prank was on the humorous silly accents of the presenters, then why did they not just air the beginning of the phone prank and pretend their call was promptly terminated by hospital staff using an edited-in hang-up dial tone, like they anticipated?" Unfortunately, I think someone thought breaking privacy law for the sake of a radio joke would be a case of any publicity being good publicity, and it has backfired in the worst possible way imaginable.

[Bow Hunter]

IMO,

Its a prank laugh. It wasnt thier fault she commited suicide. And all this media attention is un called for as usual. Yes its sad she killed herself but in the end it was her choice no one elses. Quite selfish if you ask me. Rather see semi auto and high powered weapons in the US. I hope that guy rots in hell for eternity for what he did.

[Bow Hunter]

Sorry was ment to say (ban those weapons)