Alison Hammond said that her niece has cancer, and she was worried about how the junior doctors’ strike might affect her care.
The 48-year-old former Big Brother star co-hosted Thursday’s This Morning with the 50-year-old Dermot O’Leary. They talked about the longest strike in the history of the NHS.
Members of the British Medical Association in England started a five-day walkout on Thursday morning to protest pay. They were outside hospitals.
Alison talked about her sister, who was going through “really harsh” cancer treatment, on an ITV daytime show where the effects of the action on patients were being talked about.
She said: ‘My niece is going through cancer at the moment and she’s going through some really aggressive chemotherapy and obviously, as an auntie, I want to know if she’s going to be affected by this in any way whatsoever?
‘I know they still have doctors on but I just want to know if she’s going to be alright?’
Alison continued: ‘There’s millions of other people who are worried too and I just think, “Are they going to be alright? Is my family going to be alright?”‘
It comes after the new host of the Great British Bake Off said that her 12-year-old niece Jasmine, who is her sister Sandra’s daughter, had a heart transplant when she was three because she had Kawaski disease.
During a segment on the NHS on This Morning in March, Alison said: ‘My niece is in hospital right now – I’ve been going back and forward – she’s doing really well by the way.
‘But, the NHS staff have been absolutely amazing. She has been treated absolutely amazingly. Hi Jasmine!’
In 2011, Jasmine almost died after having a heart attack. She was saved by a transplant, which was the first one done at Birmingham Children’s Hospital.
‘We are a very close family. I love Jasmine so much, and to see her get sick like that was a horrible shock,’ Alison told the Mirror in 2012.
‘I was at Jasmine’s bedside as often as I could be – we took it in turns to be with her at all times. Our family is like that – we all support one another,’ she added.
Kawasaki disease, which is also called mucocutaneous lymph node syndrome and usually affects kids under the age of five, makes the blood vessels red and swollen.
This can then cause problems with the blood veins that bring blood to the heart.
This Morning airs weekdays from 10am on ITV.