FRIENDS, family and acquaintances of a stricken nurse who works in south Essex have rallied to support an appeal to enhance her medical treatment and bring her home after she was taken ill while abroad.

Kerstie Metcalf, 51, who lives in Benfleet and has family living and working in Thurrock, has worked in local hospitals including Basildon & Thurrock as a senior wound care nurse. She has dedicated the last 30 years of her life to working in the NHS.

She worked selflessly and tirelessly through covid, working double shifts, working herself to her fullest extent at the detriment of her own health, to ensure everyone in her care was protected and loved.

She did all this while being recommended to shield during covid due to being disabled herself, selflessly wanting to do her part for her country she persevered and worked from start to finish, contracting covid herself multiple times and putting herself at risk.

While on a visit to Hungary Kerstie where she was watching her partner, musician Akos Hasznos, 43, perform Kerstie collapsed after suffering a cardiac arrest and had to be resuscitated.

Complications from this has resulted in her having a sustained seizure that meant she did not return to a normal level of consciousness. Kerstie's medical emergency coul;d have resulted in death or permanent brain damage. The medical team treating her in Hungary have been helping her recover but they are now concerned she may have sustained brain damage and she is in a coma-like state.

Friends have now launched a funding page to help pay medical bills and get her home via air ambulance so she can recover surrounded by those that love her.

Appeal organiser Chloe Williams says: "From saving lives to saving limbs she is a force to be reckoned with.

"She has spent her entire working life protecting strangers and now she is in need of the community's help.

"Someone who has dedicated their life to helping this country now needs and deserves our help to get well and get home.

"Any help or contribution will be appreciated more than we can say. Let's get our NHS hero home where she belongs."

You can donate to the fundraiser via this link.