BIG Brother celebrity Jade Goody has slammed the care she received at Princess Alexandra Hospital during the diagnosis of her cervical cancer, claiming she was made to feel like a “hypochondriac”.

Jade, 27, who lives in Upshire, gave her withering assessment of the Harlow hospital when she appeared on breakfast news programme GMTV.

She told presenter Fiona Phillips that doctors initially gave her the all-clear, and sent her away with just pain killers for period pain.

She said: "I was in hospital for a week, and they didn't do anything because they didn't know what it was, even though it was the fourth time I’d been there for the same reason. They did a belly scan and everything was fine, even my blood, so they said to me it was either a bad period or stress.

"In the end I began to feel really frustrated, like they were insulting my intelligence, I thought they thought I was being a hypochondriac and lying about it.”

She added: “I made a conscious effort to tell them I was going away for a long period of time and they wouldn't be able to get in touch, and would that be OK. They said I was fine and I was fit and healthy."

But Jade later received the devastating news of her cancer while appearing on the Indian version of Big Brother.

She said: "They previously told me it wasn't serious - 1B, and they also said to me that I needed to wait a week for an MRI scan.

"But in that same day they called me and said they had space for an MRI scan; I think they were worried so they were backtracking.

"In the meantime I was talking to a private doctor. I told her all my symptoms - she hadn't even seen me -and straight away she said this has been here for a long time. It was a case of being 2B+ - it has gone out of the womb and into the blood stream now."

Jade is now due to have an urgent hysterectomy to remove her womb, followed by an intensive course of radiotherapy and chemotherapy.

A spokesman for Princess Alexandra Hospital said: "The trust has not received any formal notice of complaint from Ms Goody. If she does have concerns over her care and treatment we would urge to her to contact the trust directly so that we may investigate this further.

"We cannot comment on any other aspect of her treatment at this time because of strict rules governing patient confidentially."