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It looks as though BBC viewers will be saying farewell to one beloved character on Call the Midwife.

Emotions were at an all-time high on Sunday night as BBC viewers learnt the fate of Sister Monica Joan (Judy Parfitt).

Recently, Call the Midwife viewers learnt that the beloved character had kidney failure, as Dr. Patrick Turner (Stephen McGann) noted that additional tests would provide further information.

Tragically, those results were revealed during the latest instalment of the show.

As Dr Turner, Sister Julienne (Jenny Agutter) and Nurse Phyllis Crane (Linda Bassett) sat down to go over the results, Dr Turner said: “I was hoping it was something that could be treated, but chronic kidney disease is just-“

Cutting in, Sister Julienne commented: “Something that takes old people gently, but kindly.”

As Dr Turner emphasised that regardless of the matter, the disease still ‘takes’ people, Nurse Phyllis questioned how long Sister Monica Joan had been ill with the disease.

He replied: “I suspect not long.”

When asked how long she has left to live, he confessed: “The same, unless we can persuade her to accept what treatment there is, she’ll progress to end-stage renal failure fairly quickly.”

Although all seemed heartbroken by the severity of her illness, nurse Phyllis replied: “Till that day comes, we’ll just have to love her as we always have, but a bit more carefully.”

It wasn’t long before people took to X to share their thoughts on the imminent death of Sister Monica Joan as one person said: “Are they actually going to kill of sister Monica Joan? Just end Call The Midwife there!”

Someone else commented: “No, Sister Monica Joan is immortal…she can’t die.” While another added: “SISTER MONICA JOAN. Sobbing.”

Another viewer wrote: “Absolutely devastated hearing the news that Sister Monica Joan has kidney failure and may not have long left, if we lose her, it will be like losing a much-loved family member. I’d be completely heartbroken.”

For the latest showbiz, TV, movie and streaming news, go to the new Everything Gossip website ‘.

One person shared: “Don’t you dare let anything happen to Sister Monica Joan.” While another said: “#callthemidwife Oh no, surely it can’t be the demise,of Sister Monica Joan? On the other hand could it be the end on Nonnatus? What a fantastic drama this is @CallTheMidwife1 #SundayMood.”

Sister Monica Joan has been part of the beloved period drama since it began back in 2012. However, as the show marks its 15th series, it’s been reported that the final will see birth, a wedding and a funeral.

Call the Midwife continues Sundays on BBC One from 8pm

As Sister Veronica questions her purpose in life on the BBC drama, we take a look inside the life of actress Rebecca Gethings

Sister Veronica’s anguish has left Call the Midwife fans in tears as she longs for a child to call her own.

When the BBC period drama commenced its 15th series this January, set in 1971, viewers were immediately met with an unexpected revelation as Sister Veronica (Rebecca Gethings) opened up about her innermost feelings, and her tale is heartwrenching.

In a candid exchange with Geoffrey Franklin (Christopher Harper), the nun disclosed her desire to become a mother herself, despite having devoted her life to the Church.

Sister Veronica had also developed a particularly close relationship with baby Christopher, providing invaluable assistance and support to the Turner family in caring for the little one.

The family decided Christopher should travel back to Hong Kong to continue receiving medical care at the British Army Hospital, and Sister Veronica accompanied the tot on his journey.

On Sunday (February 8), Sister Veronica arrived back from Hong Kong and insisted on speaking privately with Sister Julienne (Jenny Agutter) at Nonnatus House. During an emotional discussion, Sister Veronica revealed her intention to relinquish both her position as a nun and her duties as a midwife within the order.

She said: “I came back to Poplar via the Mother House. I needed to confer with Mother Mildred because I have been feeling increasingly unhappy.”

Sister Julienne responded: “I wasn’t unaware of it but our work is not about our happiness, it is about seeking no reward other than knowing that we do his will.”

The remark caught Sister Veronica off guard, prompting her to declare: “If you are quoting Ignatius of Loyola, then you are admitting the bit about giving and not counting the cost. And I can’t keep on giving and not counting the cost any longer.”

“I hoped I could bear it, but I can’t”, Sister Veronica confessed, before removing her wimple and exposing her hair for the first time.

“I have been given permission to go away for six weeks while I decide if I want to give up my vows and leave the order.”

Sister Veronica, now going by Beryl, later received consolation from Shelagh Turner (Laura Main), who had herself left the order years earlier to build a family with Doctor Turner (Stephen McGann). Beryl subsequently gathered her belongings and departed Nonnatus House. Will she return to Nonnatus House?

Who plays Sister Veronica in Call the Midwife?

Sister Veronica joined Call the Midwife in Series 12 (2023) as a new nun at Nonnatus House, replacing Sister Hilda.

She had previously worked as a midwife in Hong Kong and initially joined Nonnatus House as a health visitor. She certainly has her quirks, though she has become a much-loved member of the team and the community.

Sister Veronica is played by Rebecca Gethings, a 50-year-old English actress who was born in Canada.

Raised in Berkshire, UK, she studied drama at the Webber Douglas Academy. Starting off her career in theatre, she appeared in the West End production of Vassa.

She has gone on to star in a long list of television shows, including Queen Eleanor in The Serpent Queen, Helen Hatley in The Thick of It, Dawn in Not Going Out, Lizzie in Extras, and a guest role in EastEnders in 2001.

Rebecca has also starred in movies, including Casino Royale and The Critic. In 2015, she played PR manager, Miriam Clark, in Ricky Gervais’ film David Brent: Life on the Road.

Who is Rebecca Gethings’ husband?

In June 2025, Rebecca tied the knot with long time partner Tom Brass, opting for a pink dress after a disaster with her original wedding dress.

Rebecca and her animation director husband, also parents to two children, celebrated their union with an intimate East London ceremony.

The actress took to Instagram to share her joy, posting a stunning snapshot of her and Tom walking hand in hand as newlyweds.

Underneath the photo, she brimmed with enthusiasm, captioning: “I do, he do, and we very much did! All our thanks to @davidjonesphotography @iconoclast_london @justineluxton_costumedesigner.”

Speaking about her wedding dress disaster, Rebecca shared on the Call the Midwife Instagram page: “I wanted to keep our wedding very low-key – just Tom, the kids and myself. So I bought myself a wedding dress online in the sales. Just a white summer dress – nothing too fancy. It was then that disaster struck!

“Unfortunately, the dress arrived by post in a rainstorm whilst I was at work! I asked our babysitter to rescue it from behind the bin where the postman had left it. But when she turned up, she found that the rain-soaked parcel box had disintegrated completely!”

Justine Luxton, the show’s costume designer, and her assistant Anna Laflin, saved the day by making a new dress from beautiful coral fabric from Joel & Sons, which Rebecca had selected.

Call the Midwife airs Sunday at 8pm on BBC One and iPlayer

**For the latest showbiz, TV, movie and streaming news, go to the new ** Everything Gossip ** website**

Two years ago, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass went to Sherman Oaks to cut a quick campaign ad for a trusted ally: Councilmember Nithya Raman.

Standing next to Bass, Raman looked into the camera and praised the mayor’s work on homelessness, saying she was “honored” to have her support.

“I couldn’t be prouder to work alongside her,” Raman said.

That video, recorded at a get-out-the-vote rally for Raman’s reelection campaign, feels like a political lifetime ago. On Feb. 7, Raman launched a surprise bid to unseat Bass, saying the city is at a “breaking point” and no longer capable of providing basic services.

Raman’s entry into the race, hours before the filing deadline, shocked the city’s political elite and infuriated the mayor’s supporters. Some observers called it a betrayal of Shakespearean proportions.

Raman’s name had appeared on a list of Bass endorsers just weeks earlier. Bass’ support for Raman’s 2024 reelection bid had helped the councilmember earn 50.7% of the vote and avoid a messy runoff.

“How can she treat a relationship like this, and dispose of it once it’s served its purpose?” said Julio Esperias, a Democratic Party activist who volunteered with Raman’s 2024 campaign at Bass’ request. “It’s a breach of trust, a betrayal, and it’s kind of hard for me to stomach at the moment.”

In 2024, Bass — then at the peak of her popularity — was featured prominently in Raman’s campaign mailers. She sent canvassers to knock on voters’ doors. A speech Bass delivered at Raman’s rally in Sherman Oaks was turned into a social media video with stirring background music.

Councilwoman Nithya Raman talks to attendees during an election night party held by the Democratic Socialists of America – LA chapter at The Greyhound on Nov. 4 in Los Angeles.

(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)

That video, along with other posts highlighting Bass’ support for her, still appears on Raman’s Instagram page, which now promotes her run for mayor.

Bass, politically bruised over her handling of last year’s devastating Palisades fire, now faces an insurgent campaign from one of the City Council’s savviest players.

Esperias said he regrets helping Raman claw back the endorsement of the Los Angeles County Democratic Party in 2023, after it nearly went to her opponent.

Bass, for her part, has downplayed any hard feelings, saying she intends to run on her record — including her collaboration with Raman. Asked if she viewed Raman’s candidacy as a betrayal, she responded: “That’s not significant now.”

Mayor Karen Bass speaks before signing a rent stabilization ordinance passed by the Los Angeles City Council, the first update to the ordinance in nearly 40 years, at Strategic Actions for a Just Economy in Los Angeles Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2025.

(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

“I will tell you that it was a surprise, absolutely,” Bass said. “But I am moving forward, I am going to run my race, and I look forward to serving with her in my second term.”

Raman has been delivering a similarly complicated message, expressing deep respect for the mayor while arguing that the city is in desperate need of change.

On the morning of Feb. 7, before filling out her paperwork at the city clerk’s office, Raman called Bass to inform her she was running.

The next day, the two women met privately at Getty House, the mayor’s mansion. Neither would say why they met or what they discussed.

At City Hall, both supporters and critics of Bass have been retracing recent events, looking for clues as to how things went wrong.

In November, while watching election returns for New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Raman told The Times that Bass was the most progressive mayor the city ever had — noting that Angelenos “vote their values.” Last month, Bass twice announced that she had Raman’s endorsement.

On Friday, Raman said she could not remember exactly when she endorsed Bass, saying she believed it came during a phone call with the mayor “probably in the fourth quarter of last year.” At the same time, she said her exasperation with the city’s leadership has been building for months.

“I have been actually frustrated by the conditions in the city for quite some time, particularly over this last year, where we are both unable to deliver basic services, like fixing streetlights and repaving streets for my constituents, but also are not moving toward a more accountable, transparent and efficient system of addressing issues like homelessness,” she said in an interview.

Gloria Martinez, center, of United Teachers Los Angeles, speaks at a rally outside City Hall featuring opponents of the effort to rewrite Measure ULA, a tax on property sales to pay for housing initiatives.

(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

Raman pointed to Measure ULA, the voter-approved tax on property sales of $5.3 million and up, as a catalyst for her mayoral bid. Although she has been a supporter of the tax, she has also concluded that it is a major obstacle to building new housing.

Last month, Raman tried without success to put a measure on the June 2 ballot that would have scaled back the types of properties covered by the tax, in hopes of jump-starting apartment construction.

Raman also told The Times that Inside Safe, the mayor’s signature program to move unhoused people indoors, needs to be redesigned so it is “fiscally sustainable.” She said she “simply did not see any progress” from the mayor’s office on that issue.

Asked whether she betrayed Bass, Raman said her decision to run was driven by the growing problems facing the city — and the need for change.

“My most important relationship in this role is with the people of Los Angeles, not the politics of City Hall,” she said.

Bass campaign spokesperson Douglas Herman pointed out that Raman is head of the council’s housing and homelessness committee — and that she repeatedly voiced support for Bass programs that have delivered back-to-back reductions in street homelessness.

Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman scans a QR code to get election updates during an election night party in March 2024.

(Myung Chun/Los Angeles Times)

“While we are developing more cost effective models, it is absolutely urgent that we get people off our streets immediately,” Herman said. “Nithya Raman is acting like a typical politician and knows it because she congratulated Mayor Bass for cleaning dangerous and long-standing encampments in her district.”

Raman’s decision has sparked an outcry from an unlikely combination of Bass allies. Danny J. Bakewell, Jr., executive editor of the Los Angeles Sentinel, condemned Raman’s actions last week in an editorial that invoked the O’Jay’s 1972 hit “Back Stabbers.”

“One of life’s greatest disappointments is discovering that someone you believed was a friend is not,” wrote Bakewell, whose newspaper focuses on issues facing the city’s Black community.

The Los Angeles Police Protective League, which represents rank-and-file LAPD officers and opposed Raman’s reelection in 2024, offered a similar take.

“If political backstabbing were a crime, Nithya Raman would be a wanted fugitive,” the union’s board, which has endorsed Bass, said in a statement.

Zev Yaroslavsky, a former county supervisor and City Council member, does not believe that Raman’s recent history with Bass — endorsing her and later running against her — will be an issue for the electorate. In L.A. political circles, however, it will be viewed as a transgression, at least in the short term, he said.

“As a politician, you don’t have much currency. What you have is your word,” he said.

Yaroslavsky, director of the Los Angeles Initiative at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, said he is certain that Raman and the other major candidates — community organizer Rae Huang, reality television star Spencer Pratt and tech entrepreneur Adam Miller — have looked at polls showing that Bass is politically weakened and vulnerable to a challenge.

“If Raman becomes mayor, nobody’s going to remember this, including the political class,” he said. “If she doesn’t, it’ll be a little more difficult for her. It’s not irreparable. But there will be a residue to this.”

On the council, Raman belongs to a four-member voting bloc, each of whom won office with support from Democratic Socialists of America. While Bass is generally considered more conservative than Raman on public safety issues, the two share many of the same policy priorities, particularly around homelessness.

In her first campaign for City Council in 2020, Raman ran on a promise to address the city’s homelessness crisis in a humanitarian way, by moving unhoused residents into temporary and permanent housing.

Bass, a former state Assembly speaker and 12-year member of Congress, took office two years later and made homelessness her signature issue, convincing the council to expand her power to respond to the crisis.

Raman backed Bass’ declaration of a homelessness emergency, which gave the mayor the power to award contracts and sign leases directly. A week later, Bass staged her first Inside Safe operation in Raman’s district, on a stretch of Cahuenga Boulevard in Hollywood.

As recently as July, Raman appeared on a Bass press release touting the city’s progress on homelessness.

Bass first announced that Raman had endorsed her on Jan. 27. Raman said she did not begin seriously contemplating a run for mayor until the following week, as the filing deadline approached.

Over a tumultuous 48-hour period, former L.A. schools Supt. Austin Beutner exited the race, while real estate developer Rick Caruso and L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath announced that they, too, would stay out.

“I realized we were potentially not even going to have a real competition, and that troubled me,” Raman said.

Esperias, the Bass supporter, said he is still processing Raman’s decision to run.

He said Bass tapped him to help Raman in 2023 after one of Raman’s opponents, deputy city attorney Ethan Weaver, cleared a key hurdle in his bid for the endorsement of the county’s Democratic Party.

Esperias, who lives in L.A.’s Vermont Square neighborhood, said he worked with Raman’s team on a plan to persuade party members to pull Weaver’s endorsement, then flip it to Raman. While Esperias and others called and texted party members, Bass sent a letter urging them to endorse Raman.

Weaver, in an interview, said he immediately felt the difference. After Bass’ letter, interest in endorsing him evaporated.

“It changed the amount of people that would take my call,” he said.

Once the election was over, Esperias said, Raman sent a text message thanking him for his help during a tough campaign.

“I put my credibility, I put my relationships on the line to help build this coalition to get that endorsement,” Esperias said.

Raman argued that the support has gone both ways.

During Bass’ first mayoral campaign, Raman held a fundraiser at her Silver Lake home and introduced Bass to key people in her district.

“I did help her in her election as well, just like she helped me,” she said.

Times staff writer Dakota Smith contributed to this report.