It's psychodrama in the United Kingdom for Princess Kate, who even ended up at the center of an attempted intrusion into her medical records by at least one unauthorized employee of the London Clinic, where the wife of the heir to the throne William underwent a mysterious operation abdominal surgery in January.
This was revealed by the Mirror tabloid, specifying how the leaders of the private healthcare facility immediately warned Kensington Palace of the incident, which through its spokesperson limited himself to commenting: “It's a London Clinic problem”.
The response from the elite hospital, often used by the royal family precisely for the guarantee of confidentiality together with VIP services, came shortly afterwards with the promise to launch an internal investigation into “any violation” of patient information and to adopt, if necessary, disciplinary measures against any perpetrators. Thus, the climate of expectation and morbid curiosity about the princess's health can only persist, capable of feeding itself day by day with media revelations, inferences and uncontrolled rumors up to the most unlikely conspiracy theses, above all due to the limitless imagination of the world of social media.
It is not confirmed that the attempt to spy on the data was successful nor that information on the 42-year-old future queen consort was actually obtained, while one can only speculate on what prompted someone from the hospital to act: whether a very personal desire to knowing or rather the willingness to propose to some interested newspaper, hopefully hoping for a large sum of money in exchange, details on Kate's diagnosis and treatment.
Moreover, the Kingdom's tabloid press, as emerged during the legal actions conducted by Prince Harry in the British courts against the major tabloid publishers, had had no scruples in the past, resorting to private investigators, telephone interceptions and even intrusions into medical records for one's hunger for scoops.
The case certainly triggered immediate reactions, even at a political level, while it confirms the mounting pressure on the royal family due to the health issues of its members: pressure in the face of which Prince William himself appears to have been “deeply frustrated” in recent days. .
Even more so in the wake of the scandal caused by the recent publication by Kensington Palace of a photo of Kate presented as reassuring, but which later turned out to be manipulated and withdrawn amid general embarrassment.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's spokesperson spoke about the attempted intrusion into the medical records of the wife of the heir to the throne, underlining the importance of protecting privacy especially in the medical field and the need to “support the Princess of Wales” during her convalescence .
And Maria Caulfield, Deputy Minister of Health, also recalled that attempting to “access without permission” a patient's data, whether real or not, represents a “serious and serious violation” of the rules by doctors, nurses or hospital employees; also invoking a preliminary check by the London police, to evaluate hypothetical criminal profiles behind the incident.
While the independent authority for the protection of personal data (ICO) launched an administrative investigation as soon as it became aware of the news. Meanwhile, we continue to talk about the video published yesterday by the Sun in which the princess, still waiting for certain dates on her return to public activity after Easter, was immortalized smiling and in good shape, even if she had lost quite a bit of weight, alongside her husband at a shop near their Adelaide Cottage residence in Windsor.
The author of the first ever film on Kate after the January surgery, 40-year-old Nelson Silva who was at the Windsor Farm Shop to make purchases, in an interview published today in the tabloid assured that he recognized the Princess of Wales and he rejected as “delusional” the theories spread – along with many others – on the web, according to which he was a lookalike.
As we read in a BBC comment, this obsession fueled by social networks, to which the media contribute and which fills an information void, ultimately risks eroding the trust of the British.