AIBU - probably but very cross

[Mrs. Jingle]

Sorry rather long, but background to it all is relevant IMO

The lovely Jem now fondly known as Sniffsniff went to the vets over 2 weeks ago to be spayed. When she came home and rolled over, we were all a little concerned at how few stitches she seemed to have - and one quite long length of the wound was gaping open. Left it a few days and seemed to be healing Ok - but still a little weepy (clear) and still the open gap looked very raw and pink. Sent home without any silver spray on it (do they not do this these days?)

Fast forward and OH took her for stitches out on day 10 - really not at all sure it had healed properly and no surprise home she came with antibiotics, pain killers and the half expected news the wound was infected. Had to take her back this morning to see if it had healed enough to remove stitches, I knew it hadn't, still very gaping where they had not closed up and wet looking.

The vet admitted to OH that she had not been stitched correctly, they had missed an outer flap of skin and there was a hole on the inner layer of flesh that also should have been sealed....Long story short she had a bad infection on outer and inner layers that required an emergency OP, removal of fairly substantial layer of outer skin and restitching. she is now home on more antibiotics, more painkillers another 10 days with her lid on, but to go back Friday so they can be sure the infection has gone.

To say we have been worried and absolutely gutted she has had to go through this, but in particular as we lost our other lab so recently, with these vets who had prescribed long term high dose anti inflammatory without anything to protect her stomach - she was PTS on operating table at 6 years of age as half her stomach had been eaten away by the meds. When I asked vet what had caused it her response was ..'Oh she was a lab, she could have eaten anything that the acid has eaten through her stomach wall!'

So today this afternoon OH went to pick her up and they damn well tried to charge him another €50 after admitting it was their fault as the spaying wound site opening had not been correctly stitched up!!! He muttered that I (me that is) deal with all that and he hasn't got any money on him - bloody typical man back down when we had already said we would NOT pay one penny of this earlier in the day at home.


so I have no intention whatsoever of paying this €50 (nothing I know but a very strong principal here for me anyway) she will go back Friday - I shall go to - they will ask for payment and then she still has to go back a week later all being well to have the stitches out.....I will refuse. Will they refuse to continue to treat this wound and carry through until it is all grand and stitches removed?

Can you tell I am absolutely seething, having lost 2 dogs in less than a month and then this happening I feel VERY raw and obviously will be changing vets now, but do not want to upset the apple cart until she is out of the woods. Opinions, gentle disagreement would be fine, but please don't attack me as I am feeling too emotionally frail to answer in a coherent and adult way!

 

[tallyho!]

this happened to my cat and they did not charge me for the repair job. How awful for you to go through this. I would refuse to pay too.

 

[Clodagh]

I am so sorry, poor girl.
I would not pay for any remedial work that they caused.
In future if you have any queries about treatment ask ASAP

 

[silv]

That is awful, I certainly wouldn't pay and would change my vet when this is all sorted. Poor dog and you could do without the worry too. I hope she heals soon.

 

[Pearlsacarolsinger]

YANBU! I would have been absolutely livid too. In fact I don't think I could have stopped myself going into the vets today. I would want a very serious conversation with the senior vet and practice manager about their shoddy treatment of their patients, in the expectation of a fulsome apology and an explanation of both mistakes. I most certainly would not pay them another penny or take another animal to their practice and would tell all my friends and acquaintances why not.

However I also think that if you have any queries in future you should ring at the time. Having said that, I think you would have been fobbed off with a 'we know what we're doing' type of response - I have had that happen. I left the practice.

I hope Jem makes a speedy recovery.

 

[Mrs. Jingle]

Pearlsasinger thank you - I was purposely banned from going to pick her up this afternoon as the family feared if they tried to charge, I would rapidly morph from the reasonably understanding and forgiving old lady into the fish wife from hell. They were probably right I am ashamed to admit.

Yes I do agree we should have rung them earlier, but having been made to feel like complete old eejits who had no idea what we were talking about when we lost our other lab with them last month we did think maybe as it was several years since we had a bitch spayed perhaps this was the norm, perhaps a drainage hole etc. etc. maybe things had changed? I will never doubt my life long experience with dogs or horses ever again in a similar situation.

I have to say tonight, this rather long opening is now very neatly stitched along the entire length as we remember from previous bitches being spayed and a nice generous coating of silver spray. It bears no resemblance to the 3 or so stitches across a gaping open wound that she came home with originally.

 

[Pearlsacarolsinger]

I hope you have a 'before' photo, because depending on the response you get from senior vet you might want to involve RCVS

 

[Goldenstar]

I would write an strong letter and say that you of course assume they will forgo the bill .
I would say I require an explanation of how the shoddy job happened in the first place.
I had a spay go a little off track and I did not pay for anything .

 

[SusieT]

For a wound infection I would pay as that is a potential complication of any surgery. If they have admitted that they did not stitch it properly (this would be very unusual? and I wouldn't have continued treatment with them at this point..) then I would be asking for a refund for original surgery nevermind paying for the second op...

 

[SusieT]

ps- 'silver spray' would not inspire any confidence in me either...

 

[rara007]

Was who pays for complications not covered on the consent form? It’s relatively unusual to have any external sutures on spays at all these days so you’d need to get someone to go through the surgical notes and hope they’re correct to see if there was an error. It sounds like they’ve admitted at least partial liability though?! In general the owner not the vet pays for complications, but that should be discussed beforehand.
And no, silver spray is very much out for post op wound care! I’m surprised they even had any in the practice tbh.

 

[Books'n'dogs]

I would not only refuse to pay but would leave a review detailing your experiences with this particular veterinary clinic on their Facebook page (if they have one and if you have an account, of course, though I think I would open an account just to write a poor review) and any other website where reviews of businesses are posted. I would also report them to the overseeing authorities, their track record is extremely alarming.

 

[MrsMozartleto]

So sorry for all your angst and upset lass.

I wouldn't be paying any extra for any of it. The vets should be very contrite over their mistakes.

I hope the lass is on the mend.

 

[Dyllymoo]

I'm so sorry for your girl. hopefully she feels better soon.

I had a situation with my cat. He had liver issues, they did a key hole surgery for a biopsy as he was 12 and a Bengal (they didn't want to put him under), he became very ill. I thought he was going to die. Long story short they had to operate under general and found holes in various organs that had been done when doing the key hole surgery, he had to have his spleen removed and was very ill for weeks in the vets and had various blood transfusions and a feeding tube. It was horrific. When he was better I wrote a letter to the practice manager, whilst they never admitted what they had done they didn't charge for the surgery but they did charge for him being admitted. in the end I paid it as I was just so pleased to have him home, but now I think about it, I should have fought it.

Sorry went off on a tangent.

 

[dogatemysalad]

Not quite the same, but I was misquoted for my dogs operation and the actual cost was double the price, which included an unrelated procedure which was mainly cosmetic.
The receptionist was really good when I queried the bill. She popped into the senior vets room and he waived the extra charges immediately.
Fingers crossed, your vet practice will be just as fair.

 

[Mrs. Jingle]

Thanks all - @Pearlsasinger regrettably we did not take a picture of the original opening - wish we had but cant change that now.

@rara007 the vet yesterday morning admitted to OH it had been incorrectly closed and there was a large open hole that had not been stitched that should have been and that they had also missed stitching an underneath layer? I am interested that you tell me it is unusual to have external stitches on a spay site? Is this correct? Do they just leave a 3 inch plus area open then, I have never heard that?

@SusieT - normally I would agree that infection was a normal risk with any operation, but as I strongly believe this infection was primarily caused by inadequate and clumsy closing of the area I would not expect to pay. Especially as they have admitted the job was finished badly and inadequately.

We are not exactly well covered for small animal vets where I live and sourcing a well recommended one at very short notice would not have helped her in any way. They said themselves this was an emergency op to remove infected tissue and restitch so we would not be traipsing her around half of Ireland looking for a vet who was (a) willing to take on another vet's work half way through, and (b) recommended and well researched by us beforehand.

@Goldenstar - yes that is how we have decided to proceed, but only when we are sure the infection has completely cleared and than she is out of the woods.

 

[Mrs. Jingle]

Oh sorry forgot to ask - why is silver spray frowned on now please? I still have it in my horse's first aid kit and one of my horse vets has recommended we use it on a smallish area that refused to heal because of fly attack, this is within the past couple of years and it worked very well.

 

[rara007]

The more modern approach (not necessarily better!) is a 3 layer closure, the abdominal wall, the subcut fat and buried intradermal sutures. The skin should be opposing the whole length. If the intradermals don’t come together perfectly one could place a nylon ‘normal’ external skin suture over it. So a complete layer of nylon stitches or not doesn’t confirm that the skin hasn’t been closed but if there wasn’t intradermals or subcuts then that’s a problem. In theory nothing external is better as less irritating and nothing to remove, but the technique is fiddly to start so can be slower and, if you get a superficial infection you risk it running the whole length of the wound. The advantages to the old nylon sutures is you don’t need to be so precise and it encourages follow up as there’s something to remove so less complications go unnoticed (not implying that about yours as you knew something was awry very early on - the only time I’ve had to work with that as a policy was for a certain charity that never returned anything for post op checks that then lost a kitten to peritonitis the infection was so severe.)
I’m not convinced silver spray was ever really in for (supposedly!) clean surgical wounds. I think it just gives the farmy blue sprayers an alternative! I’m sure it’s a useful part of a first aid kit but very few sterile surgical wounds are going to benefit from it, and if it’s not sterile itself or the wound isn’t completely closed then you risk introducing infection in the first place. I know it’s used in human burns and for some wound care but again not for routine sterile surgery afaik. Again it’s not necessarily ‘wrong’ if there are vets silver spraying their spays and I’m sure it could be justified but it’s quite an unusual approach in 2020 ime

 

[Mrs. Jingle]

Thank you rar007 - you have just answered all my questions in one very concise and knowledgeable post, that I am sat here frantically googling! I think what you are now telling me are the intradermals or subcuts is the internal area that the vet was telling my husband had not been closed correctly and also needed re doing , does that sound right to you?

 

[rara007]

Without having the records and the dog pre correction surgery I would suspect so.

 

[rara007]

Further thoughts- I’d try to get hold of the practices complaints policy if you’ve not got it from before ASAP. Then raise your concern about being asked to pay anything considering the circumstances to the relevant person most likely in writing. I have no idea of the set up there but it’s quite unlikely in a larger practice you’ll be meeting the decision makers at her post op check and it’s ‘just’ their job to get the account clear and check she’s healing ok. You might be able to schedule a meeting with the manager/clinical lead at the same time as the post op or they might need to delay that whilst they fully investigate the circumstances, but they’ll almost certainly put a hold on the account. I’d hope that’s better for your blood pressure, certainly will be the Friday staffs and is more likely to get an amicable result.

 

[Quigleyandme]

I certainly would not be paying any extra costs arising from their negligence but I would put my concerns/grievance/position to them in a formal letter. I hope she makes a speedy recovery.

 

[Christmascinnamoncookie]

They told your husband the wound had been incorrectly closed, so there’s no way you should be charged for them to have corrected their own error. Proper stitching is surely reasonably straightforward?

 

[SusieT]

Thinking about this i think your first thing to do here is to write a letter to the practice senior vet saying facutally what happened/what you were told. Then I would ask for a full account of what has happened and why the problem occured. Depending on that would depend on my next step - if the surgery was truely 'botched (very unusual?) I'd want a full refund. If actually you picked them up wrong then you'd have your explanation of what actually was going on - sometimes medical temrs are misunderstood. First things first, written request for explanation of incident then go from there.

 

[FinnishLapphund]

I'm sorry to read what have happened, lots of {{{{hugs}}}} to you, and your family.

Veterinarians (and their nurses) are humans, and can make mistakes. The difference to me, is how they handle it afterwards.

I've used the same veterinary clinic since they opened 1991. One time they called me very apologetically, and told me that the blood sample they had taken from my late Buhund bitch Nessie the day before, had by mistake not been sent to wherever it should have been sent, and was now no longer usable, so we had to go back to them to do it again.
It happened many years ago, I don't even remember what the blood sample was for/about. But I do remember that I had paid the day before, and that the receptionist told me that this days visit wouldn't cost anything, and that after the new blood sample had been taken, I could pick anything from their small pet store area, free of charge.

That is why we confusingly have Nessie's cat "basket", she was a dog, but I choose something for the cats to sleep in:

That is of course not anywhere near as severe as the mistake your veterinarian have done with poor Jem/Sniffsniff (not to mention what happened to your previous Lab ).

Ideally, once the veterinarian said mistakes had been made during Jem's spaying surgery, and once it was clear she would need new surgery, I would have expected my veterinarians to make it clear to me if they expected me either to pay again, the whole amount, with a discount, or perhaps half of it, or if it would be done free of charge.
I don't see why you as a client should have to fumble around in the blind about this, they're the professionals, they should have thought about this.

Whatever the outcome regarding the money, I hope she heals smoothly, and without further complications. {{{{Vibes}}}}

 

[{97702}]

MrsJ that sounds horrendous on both counts, and I have to admit in your position I would be up at the vets practice laying people out left and right by now.... ? I am not condoning violence and I know this is not the right way of dealing with such things!

Because I am sad, I searched through over 3,000 Facebook pics ? to find the one where Millie had been spayed 3 years ago....


I remember I took this because I was pretty horrified when I picked her up about how messy the wound looked (it wasn’t my vets who did it, it was the rescue charity vets) and I was very relieved that it looked so much better the next day.

I really hope Jem recovers quickly now they have repaired everything, they could go whistle for any of their money if I were in your position. Mind you I still hold grudges for the way a vet treated (or rather didn’t treat) one of my greyhounds in 2008 so maybe I’m not the best to comment.

But I’m thinking of you, I’m sure Jem will be fine now xx

 

[Mrs. Jingle]

Squee that looks like pretty acceptable compared to the mess J was in from day one! We worked out we have probably had 10 or more bitches spayed over the past 50 years so we have seen a few. If Jem's had looked even remotely like that I would have been quite happy...It didn't, erven when we brought her home it was already very gappy and open, weeping and exposing a good few mm down into the actual inner fleshy area at one end in particular.

Her new wound is quite long but it extremely neatly stitched with a LOT of stitches in it and no weeping anywhere along it. At the moment things ook good, to be honest I haven't the energy right now to take them on, still slowly recovering from my accident so the brain still isn't quite as sharp as it should be and I get very tired very easily lol!

But as soon as I know she is Ok I will be dealing with it, hopefully in a calm and considered manner, (I do have rather a short fuse when it comes to my animals and their safety lol!) by letter initially and face to face if needed.

 

[{97702}]

Take it easy MrsJ, I must confess I had forgotten about your accident in my rush to post indignation - you are just as important as Jem so you need to look after yourself too! Make sure you are well enough before you rant at the idiot vets, they can wait.... it sounds like Jem is going to heal very nicely now ? xx