A clinically-depressed worker in Canada has had her sickness benefits cut by her insurers, after they accessed her Facebook page and found a photograph in which she was neither hanging by the neck from a length of electrical flex nor lying in a blood-soaked bath with her wrists slit.
"My doctor told me that the best way to deal with depression was to try to cheer myself up and think happy thoughts," protested a distraught Nathalie Blanchard, who has been on sick leave from employers IBM for a year.
"Balls," said a spokesman for insurers Manudeath. "The best way to deal with depression is to terminate your shitty life, preferably the day you receive your diagnosis. That would save us an awful lot of cash."
"We would urge any depressed policyholders not to fanny around with pathetic, namby-pamby cries for help," he added. "If you go to our website, you'll find all kinds of useful advice on how to ensure that your very first suicide bid will be a resounding success. When you feel like a total failure, that's an important goal - and it's one we're more than happy to expedite."
Meanwhile, a spokesman for Facebook cheerfully confirmed that the insurers had been granted permission to bypass Ms Blanchard's privacy settings.
"Our policy is to hand over everything you post to any company that asks for it, on the off-chance that it might prevent fraud or any other illegal activity," he told reporters. "That, of course, includes claiming sickness benefits to which you are legally entitled, and for which you have paid your premiums."
"After all, we faceless, impersonal corporations have to stick together," he added.
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