Malpractice?

[emmilou]

Hi all, i am currently disputing the vetrinary treatment give to my poor horse who has now sadly benn pts.
if the practice do not agree to remove certain treatments from my bill, do i have a leg to stand on?
what should i do? is there anything or anyone i can contact?

thanks all x

 

[spaniel]

Contact the RCVS if you get no joy from the vet although I suspect its in their interest to come to an arrangement to suit all parties.

 

[GTs]

I think we need more detail - the problem with the bill is you consented to every procedure, which could make it tough.

 

[vicijp]

You pay a vet for advice whether it be right or wrong, so the bill needs to be paid. If the advice was wrong that is a whole different matter. Can you prove it in court against all the expert opinions their insurance will pay for?
If you cant sort it out between yourselves then I would leave well alone.

 

[emmilou]

well, the problem was that they diagnosed a virus. one week later i had to pay an emergency call out as he couldnt even move, another vet then said that there was no way he had or had ever had a virus and that it was almost definatly something serious. it turned out to be cancer. why did she not tell me that her initial diagnosis was not a certainly?

 

[vicijp]

The clue lies in the 'she' bit.
How was the 'virus' diagnosed? It would be hard to prove/disprove a virus diagnosis, most are speculation anyway.
Im not saying you are wrong, just that fighting a vets legal insurance company is costly, from experience.

 

[GTs]

I have seen horses have surgery for an infection - the horses was throwing itself against the ground, incredibly painful and if you took 100 horses at that point. 99 would be surgical 1 would be a case like this.

There is a balance in veterinary medicine - doing the correct amount of tests for the right diagnoses. If your vet ran 10 tests costing ($2500) everytime your horses was sick to be able to diagnose with 99% accuracy it would be very expensive. Now if they can do 2 tests for $300 dollars are 90% sure, treat that and wait it is far more economical and they solve the majority of problems easily!

Unfortunately the reality is unless it changes the outcome, your horse is worth considerable sums, there is not a lot you can do. Yes I understand loosing a friend is very sad, and you wish you could have done more - but I put in the category of life. We try our best, but you can't win them all!!

 

[AmyMay]

Is it possible that the symptoms your horse displayed indicated that it could have been a virus? As sad as the loss of your horse is I do think that people have to be a little realistic and understand that it is not always possible to make an instant diagnosis of an illness.

Of course without knowing more about what went on it's really difficult to comment. But I do think that we expect our vets to have an immedite answer to our horses illness - and it's just not always possible.

 

[Toby_Zaphod]

I appreciate you will be upset & annoyed but did you approve the tests/treatment your horse had. If you did, even though they may not have found the problem, you will have to pay. Taking legal action against a vet will cost you alot of money with no guarantee of winning. Never sue on a point of principal either...it's too costly. Vets will carry insurance to pay all their costs. People aren't perfect....how many children have been sent home from doctors diagnosed with a cold or virus & have died hours later with menengitis? Unfortunately these things happen. Very sorry for your loss.

 

[Happy Horse]

It would be interesting to hear what treatments and investigations you are querying? At the time did you have any reason to doubt what you were being told or is it just since the emergency you have thought to question the original treatment?

When my old boy was ill, he showed all the symptoms of an allergy to a sting and he was treated as such. He had a massively swollen face and he was very lethargic. Two weeks later he developed severe diarrhoea and blood tests showed he had practically no protein in his blood - he had internal tumours and was PTS.

I did not even consider taking action against the vets - they were treating what they saw, I had no reason to question it - I was not able to give them any information that suggested it was cancer and I consented to all treatment along the way.

It would be lovely if veterinary medicine was an exact science but unfortunately it never will be. It is the same with human medine, there can be no guarantees. Unless the vet has been negligent then personally I think it would be foolish to try and take this any further, it sounds like an unusual and unfortunate case.

 

[Alex_kate]

the vet society or whoever it is you complain to, they all stuck up for their own so personally i wouldnt bother, some vets can be so wrong and its so annoying you cant do anything about it.
sorry about your horse.

 

[Alex_kate]

i mean stick up for their own

 

[Happy Horse]

Do you have experience of this? I only ask because the RCVS and VDS take malpractice and negligence very seriously if it is genuine. Unfortunately the number of people complaining about vets because they are not happy with the outcome is increasing - in the majority of cases the action and treatments offered by the vets are not at fault, it is just disappointment and sour grapes.

 

[Alex_kate]

i have experience when we had joey vetted the vet went back the next day after we had payed the money and changed the vet report.

 

[Happy Horse]

This is a case in point - why did you pay the money before you had the vets report in writing? A vet can't 'change' a vets report once it has been written and a copy given to the purchaser as you have the original copy.