Accidental surgery done on my cat

Crumbs87

A colleague of mine found a stray kitten a while ago but was unable to keep it so I adopted it. When I collected it I was told it was a girl and never thought to check otherwise.

Yesterday I brought her to the vets to get spayed and micro chipped. She still needed to get her vaccinations which I was told would be done post-surgery when I brought her in for a check-up. While she was out and on the table I got a phone call from the vet informing me that she was in fact a he and did I want them to go ahead and neuter him. They also said they wouldn't charge for the operation seeing as they had only just realised this fact. I thought it was strange they weren't charging me but I told them to go ahead.

A friend of mine collected him while I was still in work and when I arrived home I realised that the vet had shaved him and cut him open. They had gone in and only realised he was a boy when they couldn’t find a womb. The poor guy was in a right state last night!

I’m pretty annoyed about this. I know I told the vet he was a she but I would have thought a trained vet would realise my mistake before cutting into him. I’m not sure where I stand on it though. Should I bring him back for the check up and vaccinations or go to a new vet? Should I complain? Cause a fuss? Or should I put it down to “mistakes happen”. Any advice or thoughts on the matter would be great.

meoklmrk91

That's a tough one, i can say from doing work experience this happens quite often with cats, people bring in a boy for spaying or a girl for neutering. Neutering is a much simpler operation, it literally takes a a minute once prep has been done.

Spaying on the other hand is a much tougher and much more serious op, even though nuetering is a much smaller op it must be quite distressing for him to have two operation sites. I would personally be very annoyed about the fact that they did not mention that they had cut him twice on the phone, that is very bad customer service in my opinion, yes mistakes happen but I would consider this to be a serious one and they don't seem to be taking it very seriously.

juan.kerr

Somewhat similar thing happened me. We thought the cat (a stray) was male, found out she wasn't, brought her to be neutered and the vet discovered she had already been neutered after shaving and cutting open.

The cat will get over it, wouldn't worry about it.

anniehoo

That is DISGRACEFUL, you should be furious OP. Owners make mistakes all the time with sexing their animals and it is beyond basic that a vet should double and treble check all patient info before carrying out surgery. Even if told by their veterinary nurse its a certain sex, the vet themselves should be making sure themselves. If your vet is not even competent in this, i would run a mile. Yes, mistakes happen but this is pure negligence.

Andrew Flexing

anniehoo wrote: »

That is DISGRACEFUL, you should be furious OP. Owners make mistakes all the time with sexing their animals and it is beyond basic that a vet should double and treble check all patient info before carrying out surgery. Even if told by their veterinary nurse its a certain sex, the vet themselves should be making sure themselves. If your vet is not even competent in this, i would run a mile. Yes, mistakes happen but this is pure negligence.

Absolutley agree. Negligence in the highest order. A basic 20 second check overlooked. Do they not have a patient record or standard operating procedure?
They cannot rely on owners to sex kittens (it can be tricky to the untrained eye-even then they should still check for themselves). Imagine if a human had the wrong kidney removed? "well the mother said it was his left kidney was the bad one..."
I would be writing a letter to the vet and possibly higher. Yes the kitten will live but a totally negligent, disgracful act by the vet.

anniehoo

juan.kerr wrote: »

the vet discovered she had already been neutered after shaving and cutting open.

The cat will get over it, wouldn't worry about it.

This is a completely different scenario. It can be difficult to tell if a female cat has been previously spayed, but not checking the sex of the animal before operating....crazy! Your point of he will "get over it" is incredibly insensitive to the poor animal who underwent a more invasive procedure than he needed to.

PCros

It took me 30 seconds to tell the sex of my cat's kittens a few years ago with the help of Google.

Can't beleive a vet didnt do this he/she must have got a veterinary diploma off the back of a cornflakes box.

Wouldn’t pay a penny and they wouldn’t have a leg to stand on.

I have heard this happen before. For what ever reason, something fell through the cracks and they started operating only to discover it was a female. :eek:

hadook

Mistakes with sexing cats can happen though. I've fostered an awful lot of cats and kittens over the years and had no problem sexing them right up until the one I took in last winter & couldn't tell for sure what s/he was for months.

Both myself and the vet nurse thought it was male at 6 weeks, I thought female around 12 weeks and back to male again a week later right up until the day I booked him in to be neutered and the vet spayed her instead :rolleyes:

Zapperzy

I would be pissed off but I wouldn't be as hard on the vet, yes this is a mistake that shouldn't have happened but it happened. A miscommunication rather than a vet not able to tell the difference between a male and female, he/she presumed that the nurse who prepped the area had checked and the nurse (or a student) who prepped the area just completely forgot in amongst all the chaos of possibly trying to keep a few op tables running, do the kennels, run a clinic or watch the desk. Maybe they were understaffed or just overbooked and had a chaotic day. I have seen people clip and prep the wrong leg prior to surgery and also heard of someone putting an elaborate expensive bandage on the wrong leg.

I would be pissed off and angry and I would let them know that but if you've been happy with this vet so far I wouldn't change. I presume they struck off all charges?

wetfish

anniehoo wrote: »

That is DISGRACEFUL, you should be furious OP. Owners make mistakes all the time with sexing their animals and it is beyond basic that a vet should double and treble check all patient info before carrying out surgery. Even if told by their veterinary nurse its a certain sex, the vet themselves should be making sure themselves. If your vet is not even competent in this, i would run a mile. Yes, mistakes happen but this is pure negligence.

While I understand your sense of anger, I think it is too easy sometimes to judge an event without knowing full details. The OP sounded bewildered more so than anger with her vet. I hope that they (OP and vet) can work out what went wrong between them.

anniehoo

wetfish wrote: »

The OP sounded bewildered more so than anger with her vet. I hope that they (OP and vet) can work out what went wrong between them.

I think the OP is bewildered and not sure whether to be angry as they may think this is a common enough mistake to happen, so not get annoyed over it. It isnt common and imo its negligent and incompetent regardles of what their excuse is. A basic check was not done and the animal underwent an unnecessary invasive procedure.

Clipping a leg or applying a bandage to a wrong leg isnt a full on operation on the wrong gender. Mistakes should be put in context of the severity in fairness.

Id be fairly laid back about most things and mistakes are just human error after all, but at the end of the day the OP should be upset/annoyed and make it clearly known to the practice that they are. If there's a lazy/incompetent vet practicing or the practice is too busy to spot basics like this then they need to review their SOPs asap.

Crumbs87

Thanks for the replies. I am angry about it but seeing as I've never experienced something like this before I wasn't sure if I was over reacting or not. Now I don't think I am. This was the first time I had used this particular vet as I only have the cat a short while so there is no relationship between us.

I have booked him in to another vet which seems to have good reviews (on here and from other sources) and explained the situation. I rang the original vet who messed up the operation and asked could I come in and speak to someone in charge about what happened at the weekend. Neither person in charge are there on the weekends so I'm going to call back after work to discuss what happened and make sure they know how unhappy I am at what I see as complete incompetence. I will also be lodging a complaint with the overall veterinary group that they are part of.

Mrs Garth Brooks

I would be more pissed off if the wrong leg was amputated.

Andrew Flexing

wetfish wrote: »

While I understand your sense of anger, I think it is too easy sometimes to judge an event without knowing full details. The OP sounded bewildered more so than anger with her vet. I hope that they (OP and vet) can work out what went wrong between them.

In all fairness when it comes to medicine practise its up the them to obtain "full details"...

OP can you post more info if/when you hear more from the vet please? Very curious to how the made this mistake...

Crumbs87

Sorry it took so long to get back.

I went to the vet the discuss what had happened. They fully admitted they had made a mistake and that there was no way it should have occurred. I was told that they do have pre-op procedures in places and checking the sex of the animal is one but the vet preforming the operation obviously skipped doing this.

I was also told the vet had been given a warning, that their future ops would be supervised until management are happy they are preforming all checks fully and that new procedures have been put in place so that both the vet and nurse must check all pre-op procedures are completed.