BBC Breakfast star Naga Munchetty stopped an interview on the morning show on Friday after a guest struggled with technical issues. The presenter, alongside her co-star Charlie Stayt, was discussing how new drugs to treat cystic fibrosis have now become routinely available on the NHS in England when the mishap occurred.
Speaking to two sets of guests remotely, the pair began discussing the new development with Craig Jones, 30, who began the chat about the life-changing medication by saying that it had been a “long time coming”. However, his video and microphone quality was very low, making it difficult to hear what he had to say about the important topic.
Remaining coolheaded despite the live television mishap, Naga quickly told Craig: “Bear with me, sorry for interrupting, we’ve got a little problem with your line so I don’t want to do you or our viewers a disservice, we’ll come back to you, we’ll just reestablish your line.” She and Charlie then went on to discuss the treatment with Kayleigh and Dale Broad.
They were able to improve Craig’s video quality and have a chat with him after the short break, who said: “It means the world. It means that my fighting CF a lot of the time and my own health, it gives consistently to life and means I can be there for my wife and my son and that I won’t have an exacerbation or an infection to stop me from being able to be the husband that I’m able to be.”
© Curve MediaHe added: “It’s so important that I can say to them that they don’t have to worry so much about the future and that I will be there, not that I might.”
Naga regularly discusses medical issues and treatments on the show, and recently opened up about her personal health struggle with adenomyosis, a condition where the womb lining starts growing into its wall muscles. Speaking to The Guardian, she explained: “I was especially told this by male doctors who have never experienced a period but also by female doctors who hadn’t experienced period pain. [There was a] constant [refrain of]: ‘You’re fine, everyone else is putting up with this, why can’t you?’”
© BBC/James StackShe added that she turned to private healthcare, which was the “only time I felt I could sit there and take time and force an issue, force understanding, force explanations from my gynaecologist and not feel bad that I was taking up more than 10 minutes of my GP’s time because there was a queue of people in the waiting room”.
