Tuesday, December 18, 2012

News Thoughts: Royal Family Blamed for Nurse Suicide

If you haven't been hiding under a rock for the last quarter of the year, news of the Duchess of Cambridge aka Kate Middleton, before her marriage to Prince William of the British throne, being pregnant has been overshadowed by a tragedy.

Such joyous news should have been met with tons of congratulations, loads of royal watchers and baby bump watchers would be clamoring to get a glimpse of the commoner cum royal just to see how far along she is, but instead, a tragedy instigated by a prank call lead to this wondrous occasion to be forever stained.

Jacintha Saldanha, the nurse who committed suicide in her quarters at the King Edward VII Hospital, from what I can gather, was of Indian descent. She was a mother of two and very much married at the time of her demise. She was also the receiver of a prank joke by two Australian DJs of a radio show on 2DayFM, Mel Grieg and Michael Christian, three days prior to her suicide. Found among her belongings were three apparent suicide notes, two of which were readily recovered at the scene of the tragedy and the final one most probably in her luggage as reports indicate vaguely that it was found among her possessions. Also noted, injuries on her wrists were found at the time of her death, their nature has been pretty much left unsaid, and it is my best guess that they could have been signs of cutting injuries. How long they have been there, your guess is as good as mine.

Despite obvious reasons pointing to the suicide as something that had already been attempted at, or at least hinted at, a number of people are placing the blame on the newly-wed Royal couple due simply to their association with the hospital, its staff and of course, being the object of the DJs misfired prank call. The person who has been most notably vocal about the whole thing is Morissey, who seems to think that blaming people simply due to association a very clever and wise move.

It makes you wonder why throw light on the Royal couple when we should be more concerned about the lack of awareness people working and living with Saldanha have. Suicidal tendencies aren't something that happens overnight. It is a long-term psychological problem that should be addressed properly. It is not something people decide to do in the spur of the moment. It is something that increases gradually at a time, as the injuries on her wrists would suggest. Suicidal tendencies exist most especially in people who suffers from some form of depression, but it could also be the result of other things. Since we are of course not aware of what the mother of two had been going through, we cannot therefore simply form assumptions at what could have cause this behavior. The prank call may or may not have been the trigger that led to her final attempt at suicide, albeit a successful one, but unless the contents of the three suicide letters were made public, most especially dates to when it was written, we are pretty much left in the dark of her psychological state at the time.

I am deeply sorry for the royal in the womb, as the reports of its conception has been marred by people wanting to blame his parents simply for their association to a woman who had taken her own life. And to those who still claim the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge cares naught for a fallen health care provider, they best be informed that the couple had issued a joint statement concerning this matter shortly after hearing about this tragedy. You can find their statement here.

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