Emma Willis was too "terrified" to work in a hospital during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The 44-year-old TV presenter is eligible to work in a healthcare setting throughout the global health crisis as she is a qualified maternity care assistant and although the NHS made a plea for "extra hands" to fight the virus, she admitted she was too scared to do so.
Explaining that the decision was something she struggled with, Emma told The Sun newspaper: "This is part of something I really struggled with in the beginning. They needed extra hands and I could have been those extra hands. I could have done that, from a qualified point of view.
"But I was absolutely terrified, and that’s what I take my hat off to really. Those staff on the front line don’t have any second thoughts.
"They just go and do it, that’s what makes me realise they are incredibly special people and I’m not made like them."
Emma – who has children Isabelle, 10, Ace, eight, and four-year-old Trixie with her husband Matt Willis – had also been due to film the third series of her W Channel show ‘Delivering Babies’, at the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow, Essex, earlier this year but that has been put on hold amid the coronavirus pandemic.
And the star has great admiration for the NHS staff who are putting themselves on the line for patients during this crisis.
Speaking about the experience of taking her daughter Isabelle to hospital after she banged her head recently, Emma said: "A&E was like a ghost town, but they were phenomenal, efficient and welcoming.
"They’re in the middle of a night shift, in the middle of a pandemic and they’re still smiling, they’re still thoughtful, they’re still doing their job. They were just wonderful."