Woman needs 10 surgeries after doctor mistakes abscess for tonsillitis

Stacey Raymond, 32, from London, was the victim of an incompetent doctor who mistook an abscess for tonsillitis, The Sun reported.

According to The Sun, after complaints of pain in the throat, the doctor prescribed Stacy five days of antibiotics. Another specialist diagnosed her with an abscess, and the woman required urgent hospitalization. As the abscess developed at lightning speed, doctors called on her relatives to prepare for the worst.

Her condition quickly deteriorated and she needed emergency surgery as the infection started to eat away at her skin and muscles.

“Fortunately, it didn’t spread. I was in theatre 10 times because to treat a necrotising infection, they needed to go in and look every 24 hours to ensure the process was under control, so I would go back into theatre for them to wash out and remove any more pus and infection. I was then moved to a private ward where the wound on my neck was left open for 32 days because they needed to ensure the infection was gone. They removed tissue, skin and muscles, so I was unable to lift my head for weeks. I needed a skin graft on my neck but was unable to have this done until I was healthy again,” she said.

After all the numerous operations, Stacy had to re-learn to keep her head, because surgeons removed a fragment of the sternocleidomastoid muscle because of an abscess.