CORONAVIRUS: Current Miss England returns to Pilgrim as junior doctor to join fight against virus

Bhasha Mukherjee had no hesitation in stepping back into the fray as a junior doctor at the town’s hospital after getting messages from friends and colleagues about how the situation was developing.

She is now in self-isolating for a fortnight before going into work because she wasn’t tested while travelling in India and during her 30 hour return flights.

And although she is keen to help her colleagues again, Bhasha believes more should be being done to help and support doctors and health workers.

She is concerned about the lack of Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) at the hospital after being told by colleagues it is in short supply.

And she says there is a financial issue, where workers are having to pay much higher prices for accommodation because single room apartments on site at the hospital cost around twice as much as the kind of prices she and her colleagues were paying for shared accommodation in town, which is no longer available to them because of the virus.

She has now set up a petition calling for action on the accommodation issue through Change.org

“If we rented with non-medical staff, we put them at risk,” she said. “We are trying to keep people safe by not going and living with our families. The point of being in hospital accommodation is so we can have minimal contact with non-health staff. That way we contain infection.”

She says in the petition: “Previously I was living in a shared house with a rent of £85 a week , all inclusive of bills.

“Now with COVID 19, I will be potentially risking non -medical housemates and the community everyday if I was to live under similar circumstances, so I am left with no choice to opt for hospital accommodation which is an extortionate £605 minimum for doctors of my pay grade.

“I speak not only for myself but also all the medical staff that are being forced to choose such accommodation when they're working 13 hour shifts a day almost seven days a week , hardly using the living spaces and paying prices comparative of cities like London.”

Bhasha told the Standard that she understood health workers in other trusts were getting free accommodation, and she just wanted to see a level playing field for everybody.

Her petition, which can be found at change.org here, is calling for NHS staff to be given at least 50 per cent discounted living in hospital accommodation during the current crisis.

She said she was also concerned about PPE at the hospital.

“There is a general feeling of we have no choice but to deal with the situation. A few conversations with my colleagues have left me very concerned; for example, the PPE situation, one of my colleagues was working in ICU and there was just not enough PPE. That’s definitely a big problem.”

But she said the support that had been shown to medical staff across the country, and globally, through gestures like Clap for Carers, was heartwarming.