Doctors said her gangrenous appendix was just anxiety. She’s not alone [Video]

Joy Spence, a 21-year-old social work student from Flatrock, N.L., is among several women who told CBC News their pain and symptoms were dismissed as psychological or common reproductive issues at St. John’s emergency departments. (Malone Mullin/CBC)

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 …