EastEnders star Samantha Womack says she would have ‘delayed cancer treatment’ to strike with NHS staff

Samantha Womack said she would have delayed her own cancer treatment to strike with NHS doctors and nurses “fighting” for better pay because they “shouldn’t be eating from food banks”.

The actress, who played Ronnie Mitchell on BBC soap opera EastEnders until 2017, described herself as a “huge advocate” and “very passionate” about the NHS, having announced last year that she had been diagnosed with “brutal” breast cancer.

The 50-year-old shared: “I am so aware that often they get used as scapegoats for getting things wrong, when in fact, this is one of the best gifts that we have in this country.

“But when you’ve got the people who are working as hard as they are doing the hours they are, not being supported, even if it would have delayed my own personal treatment, I would have been out there fighting with them, because I’m absolutely desperate for them to be paid properly and appropriately for what they do.

“They certainly shouldn’t be eating from food banks,” she told PA.

Womack recently announced that she had overcome breast cancer five months after revealing her diagnosis last August, following the death of Grease star Olivia Newton-John from the disease.