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88-year-old 'This Morning' guest in tears over 'ageist' NHS firing


This Morning viewers jumped to the defence of 88-year-old Eileen Jolly today as she recalled being sacked by the NHS.

Jolly was dismissed from her position as a medical secretary in 2017 (aged 86) after bosses told her she’d made serious errors and couldn’t be retained.

She later went on to win an age discrimination case, becoming Britain’s oldest person to do so.

Jolly broke down in tears after revealing she was too ashamed to tell her family about her dismissal
Jolly broke down in tears after revealing she was too ashamed to tell her family about her dismissal

Jolly explained to presenters Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield that, in 2004, she had a cardiac arrest at her desk and woke up in intensive care. Despite being on medication ever since and having a mini defibrillator implanted, Jolly took absolutely no sick leave whatsoever up until 2014.

Claiming that she felt she was doing a competent job, she said she had no idea she was about to be dismissed from her role.

Jolly then broke into tears as she revealed she kept the news from her husband until the day he died, prompting viewers to share their support on Twitter.

Commenting on Jolly’s successful age discrimination case, her solicitor Anna Illingworth said: “I felt straight away that she would have a very strong case for the way she was being treated. It didn’t seem to me that procedures they were meant to be following were followed.

“Everything seemed incredibly heavy-handed and unpleasant, almost designed to be as unpleasant as possible.”

Jolly’s barrister Mark Green added that she was incorrectly told that she was too late to appeal against her sacking.

When asked by Schofield how they were able to prove Jolly had been discriminated for her age, Green replied: “Unfortunately there were some comments during the investigation from some of Eileen’s colleagues, which were very upsetting to do with her age.

“For example, one of them said they thought they might find her dead on the floor. The investigator and, indeed, the decision-maker didn’t discount these comments at all, and it looked like they’d taken them into account.

“Eileen even raised the possibility of age discrimination, but they didn’t answer those questions.”

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