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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To feel sorry for the Australian DJs?

921 replies

andapartridgeinaRowantree · 08/12/2012 00:38

Obviously more sorry for the nurse's family. I wonder how long she was having suicidal thoughts for? I can't think this could have been the only cause,

But these pranks have been going on for such a long time and those DJs could not have predicted such a result and are going to have to live with it for the rest of their lives.

It's such a tragedy and I feel very sad for all concerned.

OP posts:
rhondajean · 08/12/2012 13:01

I actually have a huge deal of sympathy for them.

I hate this type of joke but it s very common. Real radio for example do it every morning.

They could not possibly have foreseen that it would lead to this result. And as far as I am concerned, the fault lay with the hospital in not having the correct procedures and security protocols to ensure the hoax call didn't go through.

A woman is dead, a family had lost their mother, the DHs careers are in tatters, the livelihoods of others at the radio station must be in question due to advertisers withdrawing, and it's all because someone said a young woman had an uneventful night and was about to get washed? Is it jsut me thinking the whole thing is wildly disproportionate?

SetPhasersTaeMalkie · 08/12/2012 13:02

I agree rhondajean.

rhondajean · 08/12/2012 13:02

Oh and I would see protocol Iin this case being easy - all calls passed to the secret service to deal with?

SetPhasersTaeMalkie · 08/12/2012 13:03

However I do think the radio station must take responsibility too.

QuickLookBusy · 08/12/2012 13:06

Excellent post RedToothBrush

I've read that advertisers are already pulling out, so I wouldn't be surprised if the station is still going in a weeks time. It's also been said on the news that they did break laws concerning recording someone without their permission.

QuickLookBusy · 08/12/2012 13:09

Rhonda-"Is it jsut me thinking the whole thing is wildly disproportionate?"

What's disproportionate? The poor woman killing herself? The response to a poor woman killing herself? Confused

Morloth · 08/12/2012 13:14

The station will bounce back, they have done worse and recovered. Our regulators are pathetic.

Advertisers seem to drop people during the noisy bit and then come crawling back, they did with Sandilands and that other prize twat Jones (another station), Australian radio needs shaking until its teeth rattle.

BaublesJanson · 08/12/2012 13:17

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Totallymum · 08/12/2012 13:18

The people involved in the prank should absolutely hang their heads in shame. Regardless of the nurse's state of mind, the fact is that the pranksters led her to breach patient confidentiality, something very serious indeed that is against nurse's code of conduct.

In other words, she may well have been hauled up for a hearing at the NMC, struck off and never been able to work as a nurse again. What with the mocking in the media and the fact that the patient happened to be a royal, she must have felt so many terrible emotions; guilt, professional failure, anger (at herself), and shame. Her life would have been irreparably damaged.

It is beyond disgraceful that people try to get information about sick people for laughs, royal or not. The perpetrators of the prank call deserve everything coming to them.

So yes, YABVVVU.

Nancyclancy · 08/12/2012 13:19

I feel sorry for them and her family and Kate and William. Yes the DJ's were stupid but cannot be held responsible for the nurses death.
It was the media who YET AGAIN brought humiliation to an innocent person.

How did we know Kate was admitted to hospital? The media!!! How did we know she had hyperemesis? The media!!! Why did Kate feel she had to announce her pregnancy? The media!!! We knew all her bloody movements because of the sodding media!!!

Nancy66 · 08/12/2012 13:23

Nancy - the media reported that security had been breached. A legitimate news story. The bullying and abuse that followed was mostly on Facebook, Twitter and sites like Mumsnet.

MrsDeVere · 08/12/2012 13:24

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

EnjoyResponsibly · 08/12/2012 13:31

This poor woman's children will be able to hear the way in which she was humiliated, for a laugh, forever.

Which is exactly how long I think these radio resented and the bosses that are now protecting them should be ashamed of themselves.

They may not have foreseen such an outcome, but lets face it if they hadn't done it these kids may still have their mother.

bakingaddict · 08/12/2012 13:33

But redtoothbrush it is a private hospital and as such must have had celebrities before, it seems cavalier not to have some kind of protocol in place for dealing with people who command a great deal of media interest

To inform her nursing staff be it on the morning of her impending arrival or after she had been admitted that any incoming calls regarding Kate to be put through to her protection detail who could then vet the call, I assume she had some kind of protection sat outside or down the corridor and that she wasn't left unguarded in this hospital is in imo not too tall an order

I'm not excusing the behaviour of the DJs but would have expected more security for the Duchess in this vunreable situation, because after all the sad reality is that she is a target for intrusive aspects of the media both here and abroad. A more pragmatic approach might have benefited Jacintha and not exposed an innocent HCP to the insidious side of the press and media and left children motherless this Christmas

flippinada · 08/12/2012 13:34

The thread is rather poor taste but you can't stop people expressing their opinions.

I do wish people who keep pronouncing, with entirely misplaced and bumptious confidence, that Ms Saldanha "must have had" mental health problems would pack it in.

There's no must have about it.

BandersnatchCummerbund · 08/12/2012 13:39

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

scottishmummy · 08/12/2012 13:39

no one on mn knows ms saldanha previous or current medical history
so idle speculation about it or motives is poor taste
her children have lost mum in run unto christmas

natation · 08/12/2012 13:42

MrsdeVere has said it all already for me. The DJs need no sympathy and I hope their consciences have been awakened as they obviously weren't at the time they did this prank, same goes for those who knew in advance at the radio station - it was reported they'd consulted the station's lawyers before broadcasting.

I am a bit dumbfounded that even a single poster here feels sorry for bullies who don't think about the consequences of their bullying.

Speculating that the nurse must have MH issues is in very bad taste too, it might or might not be true, but the speculation is just another form for me of hurting the nurse's family.

I feel immense sympathy for all those who were victims of this sick joke, the nurse's family, the other hospital staff, the pregnant lady and her family.

PumpkinPositive · 08/12/2012 13:56

It is beyond disgraceful that people try to get information about sick people for laughs, royal or not. The perpetrators of the prank call deserve everything coming to them.

Really? The DJs are the subject of death threats from around the globe. Do you really think they "deserve" that? What if one of these charmers decides to act on their threats or the DJs are driven to the same desperate measures as the poor nurse (hardly inconceivable)? Will they deserve THAT too?

SetPhasersTaeMalkie · 08/12/2012 14:00

I agree PumpkinPositive - where will this all end?

The DJs are said to be in a 'fragile state' themselves, and no wonder.

It does not negate the sympathy expressed for the nurse and her family to have some compassion for the two people at the receiving end of a tidal wave of abuse.

cornflowers · 08/12/2012 14:00

"I blame the whole circus surrounding this pregnancy, media and otherwise. If everyone calmed the fuck down about it then this poor lady need never have been made to feel so disproportionately upset about her mistake in the first place."

This.

Nancy66 · 08/12/2012 14:01

of course they don't deserve everything coming to them. They took part in something that backfired badly.

DoesntTurkeyNSproutSoupDragOn · 08/12/2012 14:02

The DJs are said to be in a 'fragile state' themselves, and no wonder.

Well, perhaps they will have learnt something from this and not play stupid pranks again.

TheCrackFox · 08/12/2012 14:06

"But redtoothbrush it is a private hospital and as such must have had celebrities before, it seems cavalier not to have some kind of protocol in place for dealing with people who command a great deal of media interest"

Maybe the hospital does have protocols in place but the nurse made a mistake.

Everyone makes mistakes at work but most people are not internationally mocked for them.

YoucanringmySleighBells · 08/12/2012 14:10

Personally I do not think 'prank' adequetely describes what happened in this case.
They called up a HOSPITAL and tried to get personal information about a woman have a very difficult early pregnancy. What if there had been a change for the worse in the case of mother and aby and this was revealed on the telephone!! They had NO RIGHT to call a hospital looking for personal information and then broadcasting it.

This is so far beyond a prank and I think they are accountable to some degree as is the radio station itself.I don't feel sorry for them - no matter how much I was being paid I would not dare do something so invasive of another person's privacy.