Complaints

• Initial Complaint

  01/15/2025

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  On January 8, 2025, my wife and I took our cat to an emergency trauma center, believing he needed urgent care. He was in pain, lethargic, and refusing to eat. After tests, including x-rays, they found nothing wrong and suggested an unseen injury. They treated him for pain, but he had to stay for two distressing days.Compounding our anguish, they diagnosed him with a "very rare" issue, implying he was exaggerating his pain. They sedated him with medications like **********, and when we picked him up on January 10, he appeared miserable. They dismissed his state as simply being heavily sedated.Things worsened when we returned on January 11 around 3 AM. I explained that my cat was deteriorating, and after a long wait, we received devastating news: he had liver cancer and was dying. They suggested euthanasia and insisted that treatment options were irrelevant since he only had one to two days ******* disbelief, we sought a second opinion from another vet. After sharing his records with an animal rescue, they confirmed our suspicions: none of it made sense. On January 15, a new veterinarian diagnosed him with a heart problem that was causing fluid retention in his chest and abdomen. They provided medication to drain the fluids and a treatment plan for his ************, my cat is happy and playing, and liver cancer has been ruled out entirely. The stress and trauma caused by the first facility are unimaginable. We were misled into believing we were doing the right thing, nearly losing our cat due to their negligence. They charged us for unnecessary treatments and pushed for euthanasia when it was unwarranted. This experience has left me feeling incredibly angry and betrayed.

  Business response

  01/24/2025

  First, please help us understand who the complaint is coming from. We have no one in our database that matches the name on the complaint.  However, this same review was posted to the internet and it may be a patient under the name of Kitrio Del *******. Owners name ******* Del *******. First, we need to confirm this before we can even adequately respond to this. 
  Secondly, all of our doctors are very committed to the best possible care for their patients and want the best outcome for their patients always.  We only hire doctors with a passion for pets and for medicine and no other reason.
  If Kitrio is the patient we are discussing, he did come in in pain and we have videos documentation of that & the videos where he is no longer in pain when he left. We have proof that during the first visit, the doctors identified heart disease and communicated that with the owners, but told them that was not the source of his pain.  His heart disease was stable at the time he was presented.  The records clearly show that the doctor in charge recommended an echocardiogram. In his complaint however, he states that he did the echo at the recommendation of another vet. I can clearly show proof that we made this recommendation.  The 2nd time he came in, the veterinarian that saw him clearly put in her notes that he did have a heart murmur, but that his lungs were clear and not muffled (so, no fluid in the chest).  She performed an AFAST on him which is an ER ultrasound technique to identify fluid in the abdomen. Her notes reflect 0/4 fluid, which means no fluid was in the abdomen either. She further noted that she felt there was a circular structure seen in the liver. She advised the owners that they needed to consider that it could be a tumor, but did not diagnose him with liver cancer. She recommended an abdominal ultrasound with cardiac echo, but they declined. It appears that that may be the testing that was later done elsewhere that lead to firm diagnoses and was able to substantiate or refute the various differentials our doctor had.
  I did not personally see Kitrio, and I would like to request all the medical notes from the other veterinarians office so I can adequately review everything together.  However, from reading the doctors notes and the owners comments, it seems to me that his heart disease escalated from the time he left us to the time he went to the other veterinarians office.  Heart disease in cats can be escalated by compounding medical problems or stress. When this happens, a cat can go from having stable heart disease to unstable heart disease and having fluid buildup.  It sounds like he developed fluid in his chest and abdomen that had not previously been there, which again we can substantiate in our notes.
  We only want the best for Kitrio and are saddened by how all of this unfolded but are pleased that he is now doing well.  Please provide me with the veterinarians notes and let me know if I can be of assistance in any other way.
  Thank you.
  

*Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business. ↩