Indian-origin doctor Bhasha Mukherjee had taken a break being a junior doctor after competing in the Miss World pageant in December 2019. Mukherjee, who was invited to be an ambassador for several charities, had been in India for the last four weeks on behalf of Coventry Mercia Lions Club, a UK-based development and community charity, for which she was ambassador. While here, she, along with representatives of the club, donated stationery to schools in Kolkata and gave money to a home for abandoned girls.
The CNN reported that Mukherjee had been getting messages from former colleagues at her old hospital, the Pilgrim Hospital in Boston, eastern England, telling her how hard the situation was for them.
And so, after getting in touch with the hospital’s management that she wanted to return to work, she returned to the UK on Wednesday after working with the British High Commission in Kolkata to find a flight from India to Frankfurt, then to London.
She said it felt wrong to be wearing her Miss England crown while people around the world were dying from coronavirus and her colleagues were working so hard. Mukherjee is currently self-isolating for 14 days before she returns to work as a doctor at the Pilgrim Hospital. Mukherjee moved from India to England with immigrant parents at the age of nine.
Mukherjee attended the University of Nottingham, where she studied bachelor of science in medical sciences, bachelor of medicine and bachelor of surgery.
As of Monday, the UK had recorded more than 48,000 cases of the novel coronavirus and nearly 5,000 deaths, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University.