In 2019, 24-year-old Bhasha Mukherjee was crowned ‘Miss England’. After representing England at Miss World in December 2019, she hung her stethoscope to pursue humanitarian work around the world. But after the breakout of the pandemic, she has decided to return to work as a junior doctor.
She was born in Kolkata but raised in Derby, England. Here, her family struggled to the point that they did not have money for books, or even an internet connection, so she spent all of her time at the library, and her grades soared.
Her academic success got her into Nottingham University, where she studied for two degrees, medical sciences and medicine and surgery.
In early March 2020, Bhasha Mukherjee had been in India for four weeks as part of Coventry Mercia Lions Club, a development and community charity of which she was the ambassador. Here, as part of the charity, she visited schools and donated stationary, and also gave money to a home for abandoned girls. However, things were turning grim back home in the UK, where the rapid spread of the coronavirus was starting to overwhelm hospitals, and doctors were beginning to get overworked.
After receiving multiple messages about how stressful the situation had become, Bhasha called up her older place of employment, a hospital in eastern England, the Pilgrim Hospital in Boston, and let them know that she would want to return to work.
“There’s no better time for me to be Miss England and helping England at a time of need.”Bhasha Mukherjee
She recently posted this video on her Instagram account, with the caption “#Stayhome. We owe it to our brilliant NHS staff and healthcare staff all over the world to at least follow one simple step: stay at home. Our fore father's lasted world wars , famines , great depression, partitions, holocaust - 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.”
She said that she felt there was no better way to serve her country as ‘Miss England’ than to be at the frontline, fighting this deadly virus as it takes the lives of hundreds every day. “I felt a sense of this is what I'd got this degree for and what better time to be part of this particular sector than now," she said.
Bhasha will self-isolate for two weeks before joining work to ensure she’s safe from the virus herself. She specialises in respiratory medicine but said that doctors are being rotated according to need. The UK has recorded more than 50,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and over 5000 fatalities.
(With inputs from CNN.)
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