EastEnders star Cheryl Fergison talks hospitalisation after "complete agony"
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Former EastEnders star Cheryl Fergison has opened up about her recent hospitalisation, saying she had been in "complete agony".
The actress, who played Heather Trott on the BBC soap between 2007 and 2012, shared her scary experience in a video clip posted to Instagram, before thanking the NHS for the work they manage to do in a "broken system".
"I've just spent the last 24 hours in A&E at Blackpool Victoria hospital. I've seen things in the last 24 hours that I can't unsee. I've been in complete agony," Fergison began.
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She continued: "I've been made a million times better by the angels that are all of the NHS staff which I want to thank, like, big time. When people say they don't get paid enough – they really don't get paid enough.
"We've got a broken system. It's gone to pot. It's shot. But it's still amazing and we still have it – just by a thread. I want to firstly say a huge thank you. I'm a lot better.
"When you sit for 24 hours in a chair in an A&E department being shipped off every six hours to go and get an IV, antibiotic drips, and come back again and sit in the waiting room of the A&E, you see much more of things that keep happening because there simply are no beds, no wards, no anything.
"People are waiting up to 60 hours to be put on a ward. I met a man who had been there over 30 hours and he still hadn't got a bed and he was having an operation."
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Fergison went on to criticise those who she said "abuse" the system, such as people who go into A&E for "things that could be treated with some paracetamol" or who have "no respect for the NHS staff".
"There are truly sick people out there who need to use the services," she explained. "There was young, there was old, there was vulnerable, there was people with mental illness, there was police having to deal with people who had just lost the plot, been in fights, done all sorts of things".
She added: "We need to stop abusing our system that we have at the moment that's free, that was set up for people who could get the best care. [NHS staff] don't get paid enough.
"Sorry, but they do not for the abuse, for the care, for the hours, for the lack of sleep they have, for the continuous care even when they've come off shift. I sat for 24 hours and watched this. At some points I was quite tearful."
EastEnders airs on Mondays - Thursdays at 7.30pm on BBC One. The show also streams on BBC iPlayer, where most episodes drop early at 6am ahead of their TV broadcast.
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