"You Can Be Pro-NHS Or Pro-Brexit... But You Can't Be Both"

2 July 2018, 08:38

This doctor told Nick Ferrari that people need to choose between Brexit or the NHS.

In the week that the NHS celebrates its 70th birthday, Rachel Clarke, a Palliative Care Doctor in the NHS, insisted that you can't be in favour of both Brexit and the NHS.

She insisted that with EU doctors and nurses "leaving in their droves", the Health Service is going to struggle once we leave the EU.

Speaking on LBC, Ms Clarke said: "Most of us in the NHS feel as though you can be pro-NHS and you can be pro-Brexit, but you just can't be both."

Nick queried whether she actually said that a Brexiteer couldn't support the EU and when she agreed, he commented: "Oh god, you are!"

Nick Ferrari in the LBC studio
Nick Ferrari in the LBC studio. Picture: LBC

Ms Clarke continued: "If you are a Brexiteer, you are happy to see the NHS workforce in decline because of Brexit. We know that is happening. There are fewer doctors and fewer nurses."

Nick said surely some people who work for the Health Service must have voted for Brexit, making them turkeys voting for Christmas.

But Ms Clarke told him: "The turkeys, tragically, are not the staff, but the patients.

"Ultimately what matters is not us, it's our ability to look after our patients. And right now, Brexit is threatening that."

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