It seems like the more relevant factors are: the nurse's personal history, workplace issues, a targeted call, a high-profile target, and broadcasting a recording of the call. Not to say standard, random prank-calling is OK, but it's not quite comparable.

On related notes, it's interesting that the author of OP says, "Just last summer, someone called me and claimed to be holding my brother at gunpoint. The ringing of my phone startled me for days to come." She also regrets making a mean-spirited call to her math teacher. Yet she does not seem to regret prank-calling in general.

The linked prank call is a sad case. It's the kind of call that I would have said was harmless before it happened.

The callers thought that they were being ridiculous - they thought that their accents and use of language and so on were so obviously daft that they had no idea they would actually get as far as they did. They thoguht they'd call, say some silly things, and have people laugh at them for being so inept at impersonating royalty.

Tragically, working for the modern NHS is for many people a stressful unpleasant experience with a lot of management and bureaucracy.

No, that's not the case. They had a large staff meeting, and at least one of the radio announcers expressed misgivings. These were completely ignored. It was an absolute travesty what happened next. The female DJ's career has ended, whilst the male DJ's career has bloomed.

I note this is the station that had a massive boycott due to one announcers finally going too far. You might want to look up "Sack Vile Kyle". [1]

There is no doubt that 2DayFM we're hoping for massive shock and outrage. That is their modes operandi.

1. http://sackvilekyle.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/vile-kyle-bad-be...

This is the first I'd heard of it, being an American (if that's an OK excuse.) It is sad, and also would have seemed relatively harmless beforehand to me.

To change from my original tone a bit, perhaps it is best to generalize the idea, that having fun at a stranger's confusion, behind the anonymity of a phone, is just too cruel and dangerous. You can't know what's going on in the lives of the people you call, and the consequences move out of your control when you hang up.

It was big in the media in Aus and the UK, but no real reason for it to be in the US. Radio prank calls are always painfully unfunny and usually humiliating. In this case the humiliation hit a person who was mentally ill and stressed.

The fallout here in Australia was utterly predictable; contrite and teary disc jockeys, people baying for their blood, current affairs shows doing segments left, right, and center. Equally predictably, the hospital was trying to shift responsibility for improperly managing patient privacy.

The annoying thing is that it took someone's death to show just how humiliating and terrifying being on the receiving end of these things is.

The nurse referred to in the linked prank call was working in a private hospital, not the NHS. I agree with your comment though.

Ah, right, thanks for the clarification.

It's not so easy to use "person X, who had attempted suicide multiple times, left a note blaming her successful suicide on a prank played on her three days prior" to conclude that the problem was the prank. What do you think the odds are that she would have killed herself anyway?

Just to be clear, I don't endorse prank calling at all; I'm glad it's a dying "art". But the death of Jacintha Saldanha isn't evidence for anything more than "people who are determined to mess up their own lives, can".

The point is not that "prank calls kill people". The point is that you do not know the situation of the person you are calling and even these simple fun calls can cause an undue amount of distress or anxiety. Since the benefit is minimal the risks seem to outweigh them.

And I'm pointing out that the risk here isn't "person who otherwise would have lived dies", although people seem to want to treat it that way. It's "extremely fragile person, already on suicide watch, makes yet another suicide attempt". That's not a large risk, it's a small one.

edit: this is a response to "That she named it in her suicide note isn't enough?"

No, of course not. People misattribute causes all the time. She had already attempted to kill herself twice, but we can be certain that the prank call wasn't involved in those. I estimate that the responsibility for the successful suicide can be attributed nearly 100% to whatever it was that caused the other attempts, and less than 2% to the prank call, humiliation at work, national visibility, etc, that resulted. The prior suicide attempts have so much explanatory power that almost nothing is left over for the prank call, no matter what one of her suicide notes said. She left another suicide note (same suicide, separate note) complaining about the management at her hospital, with whom she had had ongoing difficulties. Should we conclude that you shouldn't adopt policies that some employees don't like, because someone might kill themselves?

Rough impression of where I picked numbers like "nearly 100%" and "less than 2%": two questions. First, of the people who become nationally notable in some minor but arguably humiliating way (she wasn't even the staffer primarily targeted by the prank call; it's not clear to me whether anyone outside the hospital would have known she was involved), how many attempt to kill themselves? Second, of the people who attempt suicide twice, how many attempt it a third time?