Shirley Ballas was left "in tears" after hearing people left their homes during the coronavirus lockdown.
The ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ judge has been appalled by those who have not listened to government guidelines by choosing to enjoy the sunshine with picnics or sunbathing in public spaces, risking putting further strain on the NHS and frontline workers.
Writing for the The Sun newspaper, Shirley said: "I put on the news in the morning and sat there with my partner and I’m just in tears. People who don’t care for our NHS break my heart.
"I know first-hand what NHS workers, volunteers and everybody else on the front line are doing to save our lives during this pandemic. And we need to do anything we can to help them."
The 59-year-old ballroom dancer and her family have had their share of health problems in the past, but the NHS have provided them with extreme care and support that Shirley couldn’t find anywhere else.
She explained: "I knew how special the NHS is long before the pandemic. My mother and myself have had serious health problems that were diagnosed and handled brilliantly by NHS staff.
"When my mum had cancer, we were in the US. We didn’t have insurance for her — and if you don’t have insurance in the US, treatment is difficult to get and very expensive.
"I took her to a clinic where I hoped she would get a proper diagnosis. Instead they just made her jump up and down, telling her she had tummy ache.
"It was obvious something was wrong because she was in so much pain and couldn’t pass anything. I brought her straight back to England, where she went to her regular doctor. Within a week, she was diagnosed with colon cancer and they had her in hospital."
Shirley praised the UK’s healthcare system, and in particular one nurse that changed her life.
She recalled: "In 2018 I went for a mammogram and a young nurse said to me, ‘Mrs Ballas, we have this new thing that squeezes the boob and squashes the fake boobs. But we can’t really see behind the back of it. You know that, right?’
"That single line changed my life. Unless she reads this, she will never know the impact that she had on me.
"It made me think, ‘Why am I always sick? They can’t see behind these fake implants that shouldn’t really be in your chest in the first place. You know it’s a foreign body that’s there.’ That is what prompted me to have my implants taken out."
Shirley Ballas ‘in tears’ over people ignoring government advice
