A nurse was reduced to tears after she was subjected to rude comments when she used her NHS card to avoid a large queue.
The woman, who asked not to be named, headed to an Aldi in Liverpool at 7.55am after finishing a long 13 hour shift at Alder Hay Children's Hospital.
The supermarket has announced that NHS workers don't need to wait in the long queues which have formed outside its stores due to social distancing rules, The Liverpool Echo reported.
"I had just finished work and the girls had said to me Aldi opens at 8am and the NHS don't have to stand in the queue," the nurse, who has 30 years experience at Alder Hay, said.
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"I got there, got out of my car and there was a big queue. I walked over and there was a security guard standing there. I said 'where do I stand?' and said I was NHS and showed him my card, so he said 'stand here'.
"And then the comments from people in the queue, they started saying 'oh yeah, we're all NHS here', 'so what NHS that's your job.' There were about six or seven of them saying things, and I didn't answer back because I thought it would just fuel it."
The nurse said she felt so upset by the incident she rushed around the store and left.
On the way out she was targeted with another mean comment.
One woman said: "There she is, I know the NHS do a good job but so what?"
The remarks come a week after millions of people across the UK stopped to clap NHS workers and carers tackling the coronavirus pandemic.
The nurse said: "I couldn't believe it. After feeling so humbled the other night.
"After the clapping for the NHS, to being abused this morning from a few people who haven't a clue what I had endured on my night shift.
"It's just horrible, people just don't know."
The nurse said she "cried all the way home" after the unpleasant incident.
She said Aldi staff had been fantastic and she had written to thank them - but the reaction of the customers she described as "very sad."
She said: "I never expected for one minute I would be challenged going in, I was embarrassed to be doing it in the first place. I cried all the way home.
The nurse said members of her extended family have died after contracting coronavirus and other relatives have had the disease.
She said: "This disease, if it is as bad as they say, at some point is going to touch a lot of people's lives, whether it is a neighbour, a close family member, it is going to affect each and every one of us.
"But for the NHS staff, it does not feel as if we get the same respect as we used to."
