Miss England Bhasha Mukherjee Resumes Work As Doctor Amid COVID-19 Crisis

Miss England 2019, Bhasha Mukherjee, has resumed her career as a doctor amid the coronavirus crisis. Ms Mukherjee, who was in India for a humanitarian trip, returned to the UK to continue her work as a doctor as coronavirus cases surged across the globe.

Born in Kolkata, Bhasha Mukherjee was crowned Miss England in August last year. She had initially decided to take a break from her medical career to focus on charity work after winning the crown - until the coronavirus pandemic changed her decision. 

"It wasn't a tough decision," the 24-year-old told Fox News on Tuesday. "I've been to Africa, Turkey, and India was the first of the Asian countries I was going to travel to. After India, I had several other countries that had to be cut short because of obviously the coronavirus. I knew the best place for me would be back at the hospital."

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#Stayhome We owe it to our brilliant NHS staff and healthcare staff all over the world to atleast follow one simple step: stay at home. Our fore father's lasted world wars , famines , great depression, partitions, haulocaust - the trauma of which was by far much bigger than anything we are facing right now constricted within our own four walls. Health care staff are risking their lives for us so let's risk our mere leisure for a little while to say thank you to them. Video by @soulful_s @missenglandnews

A post shared by Dr Bhasha Mukherjee (@bhasha05) on Mar 24, 2020 at 7:41am PDT

According to CNN, Ms Mukherjee had been in India for four weeks when, in the beginning of March, the coronavirus situation worsened in the UK and she began to receive messages from her former colleagues at the Pilgrim Hospital in Boston, eastern England, telling her how difficult the situation. 

"I wanted to come back home. I wanted to come and go straight to work," she said to CNN, explaining that it felt wrong to wear the Miss England crown during a pandemic that has claimed lives and while her colleagues were working so hard. 

"Two or three weeks ago I was hearing about these really long shifts and that my colleagues were covering various parts of the hospital and taking on responsibilities we didn't have before. I really wanted to join in the task force right away," she said. 

Ms Mukherjee returned to the UK on Wednesday. She will be self-isolating for one to two weeks before returning to work at the Pilgrim Hospital. 

UK on Tuesday reported a record 786 new COVID-19 deaths in its daily update, following two days of falling figures. The country has recorded more than 50,000 coronavirus cases.