Veronica Schmidt
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A Big Brother contestant who was booed as he left the reality show has been rushed to hospital after slashing his wrists.
Sree Dasari, 25, who was evicted from the Channel 4 show this month, was admitted to hospital in the early hours of last Friday after paramedics were called to his room at the University of Hertfordshire.
He was treated for cuts and lacerations at QEII Hospital, in Welwyn Garden City, and then discharged. There is no suggestion the incident was a suicide attempt.
The student union president, who was widely disliked by viewers, is understood to have been watching an episode of the show when he became upset.
Channel 4 was made aware of the incident but continued with plans to include Dasari in an episode of spin-off show Big Brother's Big Mouth on Friday night. He appeared wearing a long-sleeved shirt and jacket.
A spokesman said that it has made a psychologist available to Dasari, who was ridiculed for his attempts at wooing fellow housemate Noirin Kelly and voted off the show with an 85 per cent majority.
"Housemates' welfare is of paramount importance,” a spokesman said.
“There is a well-established and extensive aftercare system in place for all housemates and Sree continues to be given ongoing support by the production team and regular access to the show psychologist."
A spokesman for the University of Hertfordshire said that Sree was receiving ongoing support.
"We are aware of the incident that took place last Thursday evening. We are offering ongoing support to Sree as part of our usual student support procedures."
The incident is likely to reignite debate about the welfare of reality show contestants. Britain’s Got Talent faced criticism in May after Susan Boyle, one of the contestant's, was admitted to a mental health clinic after the programme turned her into a worldwide celebrity overnight.
The show also fielded complaints after an 11-year-old contestant, Hollie Steel, broke down in tears mid-performance.
Big Brother has faced similar complaints of exploitation since its launch in 2000. A psychologist, David Wilson, briefly employed by Big Brother, has publicly accused the show of lacking ethics.
“The producers assured me the programme was a genuine psychological study of the human condition, but I soon found it was nothing of the sort," he said.
“The real agenda was to attract viewers by manufacturing controversy and conflict. Talk of ethical standards was a smokescreen.”
A contestant from the Netherlands version, where the show debuted, recently told of how he turned to alcohol and drugs and then suffered five breakdowns after appearing on the first series of the show.
“If it's true that I helped to create that mindless monster, I'm not too proud of it," he said.
Encouraging makers Endemol to "put it in a museum for weird artefacts of television history,” he said that if he had known what the after-effects of the show were, “I would never have signed up”.
The current series of the show has seen three contestants walk out and has garnered the lowest ratings in ten series. The programme is averaging 2 million viewers — a 33 per cent drop from series nine.
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