The India-born nurse found hanged in London, days after a prank radio call by two Australian DJs to a UK hospital treating a pregnant Kate Middleton, has directly blamed them for her death in a suicide note.
Jacintha Saldanha, 46, who was on the hospital switchboard where Kate was being treated for morning sickness last December and forwarded the hoax call to the Duchess of Cambridge’s ward, has asked her bosses in the hand-written note to make the presenters pay her mortgage, according to a report in ‘The Sunday Times’.
In one of three letters she left behind, the mother of two from Bristol reportedly exonerates the King Edward VII’s Hospital in London.
“Please accept my apologies. I am truly sorry. Thank you for all your support. I hold the Radio Australians Mel Greig and Michael Christian responsible for this act. Please make them pay my mortgage. I am sorry. Jacintha,” the newspaper quotes one of her notes, addressed to her managers at the hospital.
Saldanha had been found hanged with a scarf from her wardrobe in staff accommodation near the hospital, three days after the hoax call in December 2012. She also had marks on her wrist and an initial inquest hearing had found no suspicious circumstances into her death.
Saldanha had accepted the hoax call from the DJs pretending to be Queen Elizabeth II and Prince William’s father Prince Charles, before passing it on to a colleague who divulged details of Kate’s morning sickness.
The broadcast of the call caused international outrage and Saldanha’s subsequent death triggered a major backlash against the radio network and the hosts.
The 2Day FM DJs received death threats in the immediate aftermath of the incident and while Christian has returned to work on another show as part of South Cross Austereo’s network in Melbourne, his colleague Greig is reportedly finding it “hard to move on”.
The radio station had offered to pay AUD 500,000 into a trust fund for Saldanha’s family.
The Sunday Times said that in another of the suicide notes, the nurse said she did not blame her colleagues for the distress that drove her to kill herself.
A third note is believed to contain instructions for her funeral, which took place in India.
There have been reports that the nurse may have been placed on anti-depressants for nine months after twice attempting to kill herself during a family visit to India over a Christmas break in 2011.
The newspaper quotes sources saying that the discharge note from the Indian hospital said she would need to be monitored 24 hours a day because she had high suicidal tendencies.
Her family – hospital accountant husband Benedict Barboza, 49, son Junal, 17, and 14-year-old daughter Lisha – have denied this and claim she was hospitalised in India following an accident.
So far, it had been speculated that Saldanha, who had trained as a nurse in Mangalore, was having problems at work and may have blamed the hospital for her treatment following the hoax call.
An inquest into her death was opened and adjourned earlier this month. It was due to resume here on Thursday but is likely to be delayed.