Radio Station Donates Money After Kate Middleton Nurse's Death

Pacific Coast News, SplashNews

In the wake of Jacintha Saldanha’s alleged suicide, the Australian radio station 2DayFM will set up a trust for her family, following the tragic prank call to Kate Middleton’s hospital room.

Jacintha Saldanha ”died of shame”, according to her brother. Jacintha became famous for transferring a prank phone call to Kate Middleton‘s hospital room, which was made by Australian radio show hosts Mel Grieg and Michael Christian. Three days later, she was found dead of alleged suicide. Now, 2DayFM has announced plans to donate $524,000 to her family, including her two surviving children, who are “devastated” by the loss.

Kate and William announced their pregnancy in early December, after she was admitted to the King Edward VII Hospital — where Jacintha was working as a nurse — for severe morning sickness. On Dec. 4, Mel and Michael phoned the hospital pretending to be the Queen and Prince Charles, and Jacintha transferred their call to Kate’s room. She later allegedly committed suicide because she “felt much shame about the incident”, says her brother Naveen.

The world has been shocked and saddened by her death, and both Kate and William and the Australian radio station have commented on the matter. Mel and Michael’s show Hot 30 has since been terminated, and now as a mark of apology to 46-year-old Jacintha’s family, the radio station will donate the large sum — and some advertising revenue — to her family, reports CNN.

“We are very sorry for what has happened,” said Rhys Holleran, chief executive of Southern Cross Austereo.”We hope that by contributing to a memorial fund we can help to provide the Saldanha family with the support they need at this very difficult time.”

Mel and Michael appeared on the Today Tonight show in Australia on Dec. 10, where they cried and apologized for their actions. They admitted that they never expected the call to go through to the hospital room. Mel said “If we played any involvement in her death then we’re very sorry for that. We couldn’t foresee what was going to happen in the future.”

It really is a tragic situation. Hopefully this donation will provide Jacintha’s two children and her husband with some support.

What do YOU think HollywoodLifers? Do you think 2DayFM should make the donation?

WATCH: Austrailian DJs Apologize For Role In Nurse’s Death

CNN

– Eleanore Hutch

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With that nasty joke those ppl practicly pussed her of the cliff , i dont think it was entirely their fault bt u know those tears arent going to bring her back n i think giving them money feels like a form of disrespect like ” woops my bad” it would of been better to help pay for her funeral o watever rather than ” heres money ” sorry …

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The joke wasn’t even to her but to the hosiptal and the nurse who gave out kate’s info.

Here’s the thing, the radio hosts can’t do anything unless the producers, legal team, and management okay it. The producers and legal team screwed these people and left them hanging. Moreover, they should have gotten release forms to even be allowed to air this prank because they still technically defamed a hospital (even though they did not release specific names) and they did receive private information from a nurse who broke protocol/HIPPA by releasing the info. BTW, that nurse was not Jacintha all she (Jacintha) did was transfer the call the nurse in the correct hospital department, which was her job. A Nurse manning phone often has similar responsibilities to a receptionist only they have to follow HIPPA as well as hospital protocol. Not only does she (Jacintha) not responsible for verifying the legitimacy of the people over the phone but also lacks accesses/authority to Kate’s private information/files (other than whereabouts and time checked into the hospital). It was the responsibility of the nurse/department that Jacintha forwarded the call to, to both verify the people’s identities as well as to see if release forms were on file (as well as get Will and/or Kate’s verbal/written confirmation to say anything). That nurse clearly did no such thing and is the one who is to blame. Side note: Jacintha was not reprimanded at all, was being given support by the hospital and fell staff members, and was not even liable to be sued. This is why I have to question what kind of mindset would a wife and mother would have to be in order to kill herself over basically doing her job. In addition, I’m pretty sure that not only is God supposed to be emphatically forgiving but also not too keen on suicide (unless it’s a selfless act) so devout Catholic (who are basically the biggest anti-suicide/pro-life branch of the Christian faith) I think not. Which is why I say that Jacintha committing suicide out of “shame” for basically doing her job is a silly excuse/cop-out for her to commit suicide as well as a cover up for what had to be a woman dueling with unbearable amounts of stress/depression life that she lead, possibly in secret to her own family because of her strict upbringing (which is much more common than most people think).

2dayfm has ruined lives in the past and should’ve learnt. This is a station that creates controversy to get ratings at any cost it should be closed down its a disgrace to Australia

It seems this woman only thought of her feelings instead of the feelings of her two children she left behind. I know the prank call should have never taken place but to do something that drastic because you felt ashamed which led to a suicide is unthinkable. But it is good that her children will reap the benefits of her unstable action.