12-09-2012, 02:37 PM
As a UK resident, I'll try to answer some of NightOwl's points.
Let me start by saying I'm not a fan of prank calls generally. BUT (to me, anyway) there's a world of difference between (say) impersonating a well-known actor who's played Doctor Who and calling a local hardware shop to ask whether they sell sonic screwdrivers, and what Mel and Michael did.
The hospital is a small, private one with 58 private rooms. It is VERY exclusive (= expensive), and has down the years treated many members of the British royal family. The hospital 'knows the drill' for royal patients.
The call was made just before dawn (UK time), so the switchboard would have been on night service, and any incoming calls would be answered by a nurse and not an administrator. The nurses would be coming to the end of their night shift and so would not be at their brightest and best, relatively speaking.
Yes, Saldanha should have noted that the impressions were pretty dire, but she didn't. What she SHOULD have done was put the call through to the royal protection officer (think 'bodyguard') on duty, and not to the nurse looking after Kate — that's their standard operating procedure — but Saldanha didn't do that. If she had, none of this would have happened and the prank would have failed there and then.
Now, we don't know how experienced Saldanha was in these well-established procedures: perhaps she'd never been on duty with a 'royal in residence,' as it were. Ditto the (unnamed) nurse who finally took the call and spilled the beans. What we CAN be sure of is that both of them would have been on at least a verbal warning about breaching procedures once the news got out.
I hope that adequately addresses NightOwl's questions.
As Her Grace the Duchess of Mock has already said, these nurses have in effect committed professional suicide: patient confidentiality is a given in the nursing profession. Was that what caused Saldanha to (as it seems) take her own life? Was she already on some kind of disciplinary warning? Was she already depressed? We don't know this yet, but those issues are almost certain to be explored by the coroner: the official who in England and Wales is in charge of investigating all sudden deaths.
And let's not forget the press. I don't know why Saldanha's name got out, and the 'other' nurse's name hasn't (as far as I know), but I'd bet that every journalist worth their salt would have tried to contact Saldanha. That alone (press harrassment) can be enough to turn some people suicidal. You can be sure that the coroner will be getting Saldanha's phone records from any and all phone companies she uses, and will be examining those closely.
I assume (?) that the Lord Leveson enquiry into the British press made the US news, but if not, it's recently reported its findings. Basically, the British press have been guilty many times in the past of 'hacking' into people's cellphones to pursue stories, and many other obnoxious practices. Leveson's main recommendation is that there should be a truly independent body set up to investigate press complaints (up to now, it's been run by the press themselves). The British government are keen to implement this and support that recommendation, but for now they are leaving it up to the press to set up (!) the 'new, improved, independent' complaints body; only if that doesn't happen will the government step in and implement such a body itself.
So putting all this together, if the press DID hound Saldanha to the point where she felt suicide was the only way out, it is likely to have major repercussions on who sets up a 'real' press complaints commission. And we won't know whether or not being hounded by journalists was a factor in Saldanha's apparent suicide until the coroner's court reports its findings after holding its inquest (this may take a week or three).
Let's also not forget that 2Day Radio are the station who in 2009 had a 14-year-old girl 'dragged on to' a live Jerry Springer-esque show by her mother, who was worried about the girl's partying and possible drug taking. They hooked her up to a (fake) polygraph, then when questioned by her mother about her sexual experiences, she admitted that she had been raped when she was 12. The presenter's oh-so-charming follow-up question was 'Right … and is that the only experience you've had?' What sensitive, caring people they are. (Full story on that one is here:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/enetertainmen...62075.html)
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BFN
Zaphod
Let me start by saying I'm not a fan of prank calls generally. BUT (to me, anyway) there's a world of difference between (say) impersonating a well-known actor who's played Doctor Who and calling a local hardware shop to ask whether they sell sonic screwdrivers, and what Mel and Michael did.
The hospital is a small, private one with 58 private rooms. It is VERY exclusive (= expensive), and has down the years treated many members of the British royal family. The hospital 'knows the drill' for royal patients.
The call was made just before dawn (UK time), so the switchboard would have been on night service, and any incoming calls would be answered by a nurse and not an administrator. The nurses would be coming to the end of their night shift and so would not be at their brightest and best, relatively speaking.
Yes, Saldanha should have noted that the impressions were pretty dire, but she didn't. What she SHOULD have done was put the call through to the royal protection officer (think 'bodyguard') on duty, and not to the nurse looking after Kate — that's their standard operating procedure — but Saldanha didn't do that. If she had, none of this would have happened and the prank would have failed there and then.
Now, we don't know how experienced Saldanha was in these well-established procedures: perhaps she'd never been on duty with a 'royal in residence,' as it were. Ditto the (unnamed) nurse who finally took the call and spilled the beans. What we CAN be sure of is that both of them would have been on at least a verbal warning about breaching procedures once the news got out.
I hope that adequately addresses NightOwl's questions.
As Her Grace the Duchess of Mock has already said, these nurses have in effect committed professional suicide: patient confidentiality is a given in the nursing profession. Was that what caused Saldanha to (as it seems) take her own life? Was she already on some kind of disciplinary warning? Was she already depressed? We don't know this yet, but those issues are almost certain to be explored by the coroner: the official who in England and Wales is in charge of investigating all sudden deaths.
And let's not forget the press. I don't know why Saldanha's name got out, and the 'other' nurse's name hasn't (as far as I know), but I'd bet that every journalist worth their salt would have tried to contact Saldanha. That alone (press harrassment) can be enough to turn some people suicidal. You can be sure that the coroner will be getting Saldanha's phone records from any and all phone companies she uses, and will be examining those closely.
I assume (?) that the Lord Leveson enquiry into the British press made the US news, but if not, it's recently reported its findings. Basically, the British press have been guilty many times in the past of 'hacking' into people's cellphones to pursue stories, and many other obnoxious practices. Leveson's main recommendation is that there should be a truly independent body set up to investigate press complaints (up to now, it's been run by the press themselves). The British government are keen to implement this and support that recommendation, but for now they are leaving it up to the press to set up (!) the 'new, improved, independent' complaints body; only if that doesn't happen will the government step in and implement such a body itself.
So putting all this together, if the press DID hound Saldanha to the point where she felt suicide was the only way out, it is likely to have major repercussions on who sets up a 'real' press complaints commission. And we won't know whether or not being hounded by journalists was a factor in Saldanha's apparent suicide until the coroner's court reports its findings after holding its inquest (this may take a week or three).
Let's also not forget that 2Day Radio are the station who in 2009 had a 14-year-old girl 'dragged on to' a live Jerry Springer-esque show by her mother, who was worried about the girl's partying and possible drug taking. They hooked her up to a (fake) polygraph, then when questioned by her mother about her sexual experiences, she admitted that she had been raped when she was 12. The presenter's oh-so-charming follow-up question was 'Right … and is that the only experience you've had?' What sensitive, caring people they are. (Full story on that one is here:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/enetertainmen...62075.html)
--
BFN
Zaphod