Doctors said her gangrenous appendix was just anxiety. She’s not alone – CBC

Joy Spence, 21, says emergency rooms kept sending her home despite crippling pain

Nov 12, 2024

A woman who says she was repeatedly denied adequate emergency care last spring is blasting the Newfoundland and Labrador health-care system, saying she’s been left psychologically scarred after being told several times that her gangrenous appendix was simply anxiety or constipation.

Joy Spence, 21, said she visited emergency departments at two hospitals in St. John’s over the course of nearly two weeks this May.

What began as weakness and abdominal pain on her right side quickly deteriorated into blacking out from the agony in her torso.

But no matter how dire her symptoms got, doctors kept sending her home.

“They would just tell me, ‘Your bloodwork’s normal, there’s nothing we can do.’ They would send me home, then same thing again,” she said. “I would go back again. They would get me to do the bloodwork, say everything’s normal.”

Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/joy-spence-appendix-er-1.7370548