A British tourist is stuck in a Thai hospital with a massive neck wound after she contracted tonsillitis and suffered a horrific secondary infection that ‘erupted’.
Pamela Gatehouse, 69, and her 71-year-old husband John, from Carshalton, Surrey, had travelled to Bangkok, Thailand, earlier this month to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary on February 15.
But their plans were turned upside-down when Pamela contracted tonsillitis while the couple was in India.
‘We went to the doctors and got medication, but then when we got to Thailand, it gradually got worse and suddenly erupted,’ Pamela’s husband John told MailOnline.
He explained that a wound opened up on the side of her neck, with pus ‘bursting out’ and covering their hotel room bed in Pattaya.
Pamela was rushed to hospital a day after her birthday on February 11, where doctors did CT and X-Ray scans that determine she suffered a horrific secondary infection due to the tonsillitis.
‘She’s in so much agony. She’s got a flesh wound, one big open wound, from the top of her breast up to her shoulder,’ John said about the frying pan-sized gash on her upper body.
He added: ‘It is soul-destroying seeing her like that. I never thought that on our 50th wedding anniversary, she would be in hospital and I would be in limbo. It’s devastating.’
Pamela had to undergo four surgeries so far to remove dead flesh and skin as well as receive vacuum treatment to oxygenate the wound and speed up healing, amounting to £15,300, which John could only pay for by maxing out the couple’s credit cards.
Pamela Gatehouse, 69, is stuck in a Thai hospital with a massive neck wound after she contracted tonsillitis and suffered a horrific secondary infection
Pictured above is the horrifying wound Pamela suffered due to an infection after having tonsillitis
Pamela Gatehouse, 69, and her 71-year-old husband John, from Carshalton, Surrey, had travelled to Bangkok, Thailand, earlier this month to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary on February 15
Pamela is set to receive four more vacuum treatments, which cost £4,500 up front each time. The couple is therefore facing at least another £18,000 just to cover these treatments, bringing the medical bill total up to £33,300.
She had one procedure done this morning and is facing another next Monday.
‘It’s just a waiting game every time. You don’t know where she’s going to survive the surgery, because she’s got COPD [chronic obstructive pulmonary disease] as well, which doesn’t help,’ John said.
‘She’s got a rare blood group, which is 0 negative. So if she bled out, then we’ve got no blood to help, because the Thai people don’t have the same blood type as the Europeans. Everything is against us at the moment.’
He added: ‘We’re in a private hospital and I don’t know whether they could just treat her or just gonna let her die [if we can’t pay]. I just don’t know,’ John told MailOnline.
‘At the hospital they have a rate for Thai people, and they have a rate for tourists. So it’s like a two tier system, as they are thinking that the tourists are more affluent than the Thai people.’
To fly Pamela back to the UK, John said he is looking at a further cost of £42,500 via a commercial airline – which would need to be assured by the hospital that his wife is fit to fly – or a private air ambulance costing upwards of £140,000.
This will take the total for the medical bills and flight home to at least £75,800 if they go home commercially or a minimum of £173,300 if they go by private air ambulance.
Pamela is set to receive four more vacuum treatments, which cost £4,500 up front each time. The couple is therefore facing at least another £18,000 just to cover these treatments
With their help and donations from a fundraiser he set up, John hopes to cover the rest of the treatment after he said their insurance company has refused to pay
John explained: ‘We’re trying to arrange a commercial flight and put the stretcher on the plane there, but whether she’s strong enough for the 13 hour flight…’
The worried pensioner has contacted the British embassy in Thailand for help and said he was told to ask friends and family for donations.
With their help and donations from a fundraiser he set up, John hopes to cover the rest of the treatment after he said their insurance company has refused to pay.
John said: ‘We have two insurance policies. One […] was for like 134 days, which covered us for India. And of course, we came over to Thailand.
‘What they’re saying, because we were in India and then went to Thailand, we’re not covered on the insurance policy.
‘The [other] they’re saying you get 31 days of cover, which is free, but because we left the UK on November 2, that cover ran out on December 2. We were thinking that would cover us for Thailand, but it didn’t.’
Their daughter, Claire, 45, is back in the UK trying to help her parents return home and coordinate from here, John said.
It was on Claire’s birthday, on February 11, that her mother was first taken to hospital, just a day after John and Pamela arrived in Thailand.
The couple, who tragically lost their 43-year-old son to Covid in 2021, had been due to leave Thailand after their anniversary to return to India for the rest of their holiday on February 19
John and Pamela had made the trip not just to celebrate their anniversary, but also to help with Pamela’s COPD symptoms. ‘It’s easier for Pamela to breathe in warmer weather,’ John said
The couple, who tragically lost their 43-year-old son to Covid in 2021, had been due to leave Thailand after their anniversary to return to India for the rest of their holiday on February 19.
‘I had to change hotel since because we were supposed to leave on Wednesday. I’m now around the corner from the hospital to walk there every day,’ John said.
He is by Pamela’s side during visiting hours -8am to 7pm – every day.
John and Pamela had made the trip not just to celebrate their anniversary, but also to help with Pamela’s COPD symptoms.
‘It’s easier for Pamela to breathe in warmer weather. The weather back in the UK just cripples her. She struggles to breathe and can’t walk very far. That’s why we go abroad,’ John said.
You can donate to John Gatehouse’ fundraiser for his wife’s treatment cost here.
An FCDO spokesperson said: ‘We are supporting a British woman who has been hospitalised in Thailand’.
