Two days before Chinese New Year's Eve I received a call.
A referral case that I did not really want to take. A cat with a bladder stone was operated on by another clinic about 1 week ago. The surgical site was infected.
I accepted the case because I know the referring vet.
The cat arrived with a pet transporter. I was informed by the transporter that the intestines were outside of the abdomen.
The cat did not survive the surgical repair.
MY ISSUES:
I don't really want to take the case because this is not the first time I have to "patch-up" others' lousy surgeries and get frustrated by it. It is a lot harder when it is a "second time" attempt to do surgery on a pet.
Should there be any post surgical issues, the owner will expect my clinic to be responsible for it.
I accepted it in the end because the cat will probably be euthanized if she was sent to any other places.
Retrospectively, I realised I was very upset during the surgery because the condition of the infected surgical site suggested to me that the first vet that operated on the cat did it carelessly.
The second attempt to repair the area should also have been done long time ago, not referred out after the intestines had fallen out of the abdominal cavity for so long.
The cat did not deserve this poor quality care.
Yes. My greatest concern was that it was done by a trained professional without a heart.
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