Nope she didn't die. She was just plain fired.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,73995,00.html
General Hospital Axes Oldest Character
Soap-opera fans from the mid-'60s will fondly recall Nurse Audrey at the nurses' station with her starched white hat and her melodramatic secret: in love with one man, pregnant by another!
But 38 years wasn't enough tenure to save Audrey Hardy from being whacked by the General Hospital administration.
The veteran actress Rachel Ames, who's played Audrey since 1964, has been quietly removed from the opening credits of ABC's oldest soap. She's gone, her solid American values and good sense replaced by a daily salute to youth and crime.
Ames/Hardy the last original cast member is just the latest victim of General Hospital's continuing preoccupation with remaking itself as a lame excuse for The Godfather. (Also gone are fan favorites Brad Maule and Shell Kepler, as well as longtime star Genie Francis, who was the female half of the famous "Luke and Laura" duo.)
In the show's current incarnation, an untouchable mob boss named "Sonny Corinthos" (sounds like Sonny Corleone, no?), whose real name is Michael (also as in Corleone) rules the town of Port Charles, N.Y., with cotton balls in his mouth (sounds like Brando, no?) and a moll-like wife who talks like she just walked off The Sopranos.
The only relationship the show now has to the hospital in the title is that Sonny sends his victims there.