...TO WANT TO KILL OR MAIM THE VET?????

[salsmum]

My daughter is disabled and we took her rescue kitten (18 weeks) to be castrated,microchipped etc... to a very well known cat and dog neutering clinic which offers subsidised vet care (similar to PDSA) my daughter is on Incapacity Benefit. Her kitten 'Ollie' has dark brown gomads against cream coloured back legs. While at work I rang my partner to ask if everything went ok when he collected puss.....he said there was a problem although stated he'd tell me when I finished work (9pm). when he picked me up I was and [shocked] and upset to find that the vet had in fact shaved and opened up puss to spay HIM thinking HE was a HER I am so angry and mad that a 'qualified' vet could put my cat under the stress and pain of 2 operations (they castrated him as well) without realising he was a MALE...I wonder if there is a vets 'ombudsman' who can advise what I can do...there was NO apology and they mearly offered to knock £20 off the bill I now have a cat with a shaved side and stitches on side and on 'gomads' I really don't want this mistake to happen to any other animal. My partner was speechless and couldn't say anything he was so shocked. Are there any vets who can offer advice please???.

That's bloody awful, the poor cat

I don't think you need a vet to advise you (this is the internet after all so how would you know?)

You just need to Google and find out who to complain to.

Good luck.

Oh dear poor cat, they certainly should have checked the back end before operating. Have no idea who you should complain to, but wanted to sympathise.

These people.

I have no clue who you contact but it will be on google. That's shocking, absolutely crazy! The mind boggles /

WTF a vet cant sex a cat Jesus!!

That's bloody terrible.

I am not a vet but I am fairly sure that even I could work out the difference between a male and female cat before I started to operate. That is outrageous!

Knowing the difference and thinking to check is a pretty basic skill isn't it?

Sounds like they're trying to play it down, which of course they would do.

You don't have to let them though.

Blimey! Even I can locate a male cat's pair of goolies and I'm no vet.

Not that I locate male cat's goolies on a regular basis or anything

Thank you kladdkaka I asked my partner if he saw the vet and got a personal apology he said no to both I will deffo NOT be going back there for his boosters! also a friend stated that he would have had a deeper anaestetic [sp] for a spay than a castration x

Lazy vet probably looked at the wrong paperwork, took it as red then carried out the procedure without physically checking..

Bad show, hope cat heals well.

You paid the bill???

I am a vet, and while I have never done this, I can assure you it's something we all dread doing by mistake, because it's actually a much easier mistake to make than you might think; if the cat has been identified as female on the paperwork, or it's a really busy day and the nurse gets the cat out of the cage and misreads the entry on the day board, or lots of other reasons. It should be routine to check before clipping every time, just in case, and we certainly do always intend to do that, but like any other routine check it can potentially be missed - maybe if there was some sort of disruption just after they'd anaesthetised the cat, for example, which distracted the staff, such as another animal having problems. I imagine that at the sort of place you describe they would typically have lots of neuterings on any given day, which would make them very slick at the procedure but mean that it could be done almost by routine just because they would have so many to get through. Mistakes do happen. Vets are human, just like anyone else. I have certainly made mistakes in my time, not that but other things, and so has every other vet I have ever talked to who's been in practice more than a few weeks. And I have certainly heard of cats being mistakenly opened up for spays when male before.

The anaesthetic used for spays and castrations is just the same, usually, but he will have had to be asleep for longer than he would have done for a castration. While I understand how the mistake could have happened, I am very surprised that they didn't do the operation free of charge, or apologise - if I had done something like that I would have phoned the owner to explain as soon as I realised and wouldn't have charged for the surgery at all, and that's what I would expect from anyone TBH. I expect they were off hand because they were embarassed, but of course they should have apologised and explained - there's no excuse for that.

Solesource the only reason they gave was that all female cats are spayed in the morning and my puss was the first (pm) boy so they confused him for 1 of the females....S/C yes my partner paid the bill.....he's more 'placid' than me and to be fair was still in deep shock x

Years ago I read one of those biography type vet storybooks where a silmilar incident happened.
Vet opened up a cat's abdomen to spay and discovers it's a Tom.

The Practise Manager tells him to inform the owner that her moggie had undescended testicles and charge her an extra £10.

No idea if true or embellished for story.

But OP.

I would report the vet to the RCVS.

Yes, mistakes can be made, but what a careless one and if they couldn't be bothered to check the gender of your cat, what else aren't they bothering to do?

I would have loved to see the vets fse mind you.

Is the kitten ok?

Face! Face!

rhondajean puss is still as whacky as ever !!! The incision on his side has bled a little so we'll have to keep an eye on that but is playing as we speak . I have worked in the care system for a long time and do realise mistakes CAN happen BUT when you have a duty of care to a vulnerable person or animal you need to be extra vigilant to eliminate those risks and I would have thought sexing the animal before de-sexing them is basic practice getting the age/name of an animal or even owners address= acceptable boo-boo that can simply be rectified....operating twice = unacceptable mistake, sorry to be so blunt but I'm still so annoyed. .

I was a vet nurse for many years. I second everything Alice said

I've seen the wrong knee on a dog opened up for an operation

It's cross making for you and unnecessary for the cat, but the worst thing I think is the way they handled it. Should definitely been foc and lots of apologies.....don't think a complaint to RCVS would get very far unless the vet has form?? It's not incompetance on its own, just a mistake

I would go back to the practice though, and ask for a refund

And YANBU...

Do they not have the same thing as human surgery where they put a giant arrow in indelible ink on the offending limb/part before the operation? I certainly remember a big arrow being drawn on my leg, to avoid the whole right/left conundrum.

You can't draw on an animal's skin before you've shaved it, MrsJohnMurphy! - so no way of marking it before the operation is under way, very easily.

Of course you are still annoyed, OP. I wonder if you would be a little less annoyed if they had done a better job of acknowledging the mistake and being sorry. From what you said, it does sound as if they may not have checked at all, maybe because they just assumed the first five cats would be spays or something like that. I agree with bejeezus that I really don't think a complaint to the RCVS will get far on its own, but you could well write to the practice manager complaining about still being charged and about the lack of apology. I'm very surprised they didn't waive all charges at the time.

Also, WRT doing the castrated even though the cat had been opened GP to spay, so having 2 ops; I think this was the best thing to do in the circumstances. Much better than the cat having to come back un for another anaesthetic on another day