Samantha Womack has backed nurses strikes - even if it affects her own cancer treatment.
The former EastEnders star recently confirmed she is free of the disease and is "thankful" for her life, five months after she announced she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. As the nurses strike today, she has thrown her support behind them and says she backs them completely even if it would have meant that her own treatment was paused or delayed.
Samantha appeared on Good Morning Britain today where she spoke to Ranvir Singh and Adil Ray about her own treatment and insisted nurses have every right to strike as she fumed they weren't being treated fairly.
Speaking about the nurses' strikes and its effect on cancer treatments, she said: "At the moment, I haven't had any appointments disrupted but I have to say, I am a huge advocate of the work that nurses do.
"They’ve looked after me so fantastically, and I really do feel that they should be paid appropriately. Even at the cost of my own treatment being disrupted, I feel like they have to fight back. They’re doing such an incredible job and not being treated fairly."
Samantha explained her cancer was found when she was just having a "random check" as she urged others to do the same.
"I was just having a random check, I was just doing a well-woman check and in between two shows I popped in to have an ultrasound, just a scan," she said, "In between shows, I saw a nasty kind of gremlin-type shadow and then had to book further appointments, and I went back on stage that evening with my head a little bit in the clouds."
She admitted to never checking herself and was "fortunate" her cancer was caught early.
"I never check myself, I've just been so strong all of my life so I was really fortunate that I just happened to do that when I did," she explained, "Certainly, the term cancer-free is a little bit misleading. Luckily I’ve got it gone for now but with cancer, you have to be careful that you’re keeping on top of everything and keep checking yourself."
Samantha said she is still having some treatments and admitted surgery was tough to recover from.
"My treatment is ongoing for breast cancer, the surgery was quite difficult to recover from just because it's quite tender when you have lymph nodes removed, there's a few mobility issues at the beginning," she explained recently.
"The first round of chemotherapy was pretty hardcore really, it was quite toxic – we were lucky because I got to recover in Spain, Ollie and Wallie were picking me up from the airport in Valencia."
