Rob Delaney speaks at the NHS SOS demo [Simon Lamrock]

ACTOR and comedian Rob Delaney told how a dozen nurses from the Whittington came to his son’s memorial service as he praised the NHS at a rally on Saturday.

He spoke movingly about the death of his two-year-old son from the top of a fire truck on Saturday.

Mr Delaney was one of thousands of people to join the NHS SOS national demonstration which set off from Warren Street tube station before marching on Downing Street.

For the first time, more than 50 campaign groups came together to demand the government funds the health service, stops poverty pay and NHS contract profiteering.

Mr Delaney, who has appeared in the Deadpool films and starred in the hit Channel 4 series Catastrophe said: “People from entertainment like me need to come and do these things. They don’t realise how fun this is to be people who care so massively. There is nothing I’d rather do.

This week’s picket line at the Whittington

“I moved here nine years ago with my family from US. Healthcare in the US is great if you can get it. We were stunned when we came here. We got great care properly and it was amazing.”

He added: “Then our youngest son was diagnosed with a brain tumour. That’s when we discovered how amazing the care in the NHS truly is. The care my son got was unbelievable. There is no ‘for profit’ barrier. We didn’t spend a minute with anyone saying you can’t get that MRI, you can’t approve that drug. We had a lot more time with our son before the tumour came back and killed him.”

His son died in 2018.

“I know that the people that I love are going to die,” he told the crowd.

“You guys might know it on paper. But I saw it happen. I held my son’s body in my arms. I think there were 13 nurses from the Whittington and Great Ormond Street at his memorial. And I miss all the time that I got to spend with nurses.

Mr Delaney appearing in Catastrophe

“The circumstances were awful. But I had such a wonderful time being around people. They are not heroes. That’s what the government calls people when they don’t want to pay them. Thank you to every nurse. Thank you to every porter. And thank you to everyone here.”

Other speakers included Kevin Courtney, the NEU general secretary, Labour MP Kate Osborne, Jeremy Corbyn MP and founder of the Peace and Justice Project, Amerit Rait, Unison vice president and NHS worker, and Dr Pallavi Devulapalli of the Green Party.

The campaign is backed by Keep Our NHS Public, People’s Assembly Against Austerity, Unite the Union, GMB, We Own It and the NHS Support Federation among others.

Thousands chanted as they marched in support of health care workers while carrying banners.

They warned of a coming “American-style system with American-style deaths” and that the “NHS is not a profit-making opportunity”.

It came ahead of three days of strike action by junior doctors, who have taken industrial action over pay.

‘A lot of people in the workforce are actively seeking to leave’

Babak Adabavazeh on the picket line at the Whittington

STRIKING doctors say they are “grieving” for the care they thought they would be able to give, writes Izzy Rowley.

Junior doctors at Whittington Hospital in Archway began their 72-hour strike action on Monday, with The British Medical Association looking for a 26 per cent pay increase. It has warned of a staff exodus from the NHS and levels of care falling as a result.

Babak Adabavazeh, 30, a junior doctor who has worked in the NHS for six years and at the Whittington since August, said: “We’re losing many of our colleagues to other countries – everyone’s moving away.

“A lot of people in the workforce are actively seeking to leave it, and we’re in a situation where we can’t afford to lose any more colleagues – you’re constantly working and doing the job of other people because people are leaving.”

He said that the Covid-19 crisis could not be blamed for understaffing any more. “I’ve been in situations where I’ve had to fill in for multiple colleagues that weren’t there,” he said.

“During Covid, I worked at a different trust, and I was put on a shadow rota which meant day or night you could be called into work.

“It didn’t matter if you were asleep or awake. For the pandemic, you just forget what the working rules and regulations are; all you’re thinking about is ‘what am I going to do for my patients?’

“But, when you have a continuation of being asked to do more and more each year for less and less because of inflation, you just feel undervalued.

“You feel: ‘Why am I in a system that doesn’t value me or treat me as human?’

He added: “What we’re looking to do is make the work environment a better one where people want to stay and we’re not haemorrhaging our workers, because we’re now becoming an exporter of medical professionals. And we know from countries that do that, that healthcare suffers.

“This is meant to be where people want to come and work, not actively research leaving. It’s honestly terrible, it’s awful.”

Mr Adabavazeh feels that the strikes are necessary to force the government to improve the NHS.

“My loyalty lies with my patients,” he said.

“The people that I care about are the people I look after – I treat them like I treat my own family. When you’re not able to do that, you personally feel like you’ve let them down.”

He said he has friends that are on £14 per hour with debts of £100,000, adding: “You’re just never going to be able to pay it off.”