Casualty's Lucy-Jo Hudson left 'sobbing' after devastating child cancer storyline amid blood shortages
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A BBC Casualty star "sobbed" as she read through her script for the Christmas special. Lucy-Jo Hudson made her return to the Holby City emergency department, 14 years after she last appeared on the show. But this time, the Leeds-born actress had no idea just how much of an impact her involvement in the All I Want For Christmas episode would have. Throughout the episode, which aired on December 21, viewers at home were given an insight into the goings on of a real working hospital – dealing with low supplies of blood.
Over the years, Casualty has never shied away from giving viewers a glimpse of the chaos behind the scenes that patients often don't see. But this time, the level of impact the show had saw a staggering rise in people signing up to give blood. Viewers heard from people who had previously relied on blood donations as people realised just how important it was to donate in order to save lives.
The show also received praised for the sensitive ways it handled the infected blood scandal which saw more than 30,000 people in the UK be given blood which had been infected with HIV and hepatitis C between the 1970s and 1980s. Speaking about her role on the show Lucy-Jo, 41, who played Adele in the special said: "It was amazing, they haven't done a Christmas special for about seven years, when I read it and read the bits of the documentary style inserted into the drama, I thought 'Oh my God, this is amazing,' I was blown away by it, I thought it was very relatable.
"The fact that we brought in real life people who have gone through what we're dramatising, I felt it was mega and something different. It set up the whole new series." Fans saw Adele young daughter, Leah, display symptoms of meningitis, including a headache and tiredness. However, Adele had no idea what was in store for her. Leah was later diagnosed with leukemia and required an urgent blood transfusion.
