I have received a reply from the head of the practice saying that Ace was not discharged from hospital with blood on him. Their explanation is that he sweated in the lorry on the way home.
So, either I am a liar, or three nurses and one vet are so sight deficient that they can't see a square foot of dried blood on the side of a horse, or they are lying to their boss to protect their arses.
Which is it I wonder?
Add to this the fact that they chased me for a bill which had already been paid by bank transfer, and that they insist they needed him in the day before even though the Pioneer of the operation does them as day cases, and you will get an idea of how annoyed I now am.
There has always been a vet who I rate higher in the area but I stuck with this one because of their hospital. This morning, I have moved my business to the vet I think I can better trust to manage my horses.
Such a shame. I got a great surgeon, it was everything around the outside that let it down.
Ace looks great this morning , and from now we can judge what he is really like, because the Bute will be wearing off if it has not already. A couple of the staples are now not holding anything together, so they'll be coming out later.
I'll be taking Radar out later too, hoping for an outing on Saturday.
C
That is breathtakingly arrogant of the Head of Practice. If that happened to me, I would change from being mildly annoyed at the lack of care, to seeing red at this point! A simple "sorry, we'll make sure we improve our standard of care in future" would have been fine, but to call you a liar is just outrageous and I would be straight on to the RCVS to make a complaint about the attitude of the Practice. The RCVS need to know that even though you are not wanting to sue anybody, the attitude of the Head of Practice is highly unprofessional and could do with some improvement. You paid a livery charge for an unnecessary day and received a sub-standard level of care than that which one would expect a horse to receive for £36 a day. You certainly did not pay to be called a liar. Disgusting!
ReplyDeleteThe other Caroline
I've had an apology now, and a 'what can we do to stop you leaving us?' Which is very nice.
ReplyDeleteMy answer was I don't see how they can repair this relationship now, because it is either the case that his staff were so sloppy that they did not see the blood or that they misled their boss to protect themselves.
Either way, how can I possibly trust them with a horse of mine again?
Thankfully, we are not short of equine specialists in this area.
C
Good grief! I would, which I think you did, make it perfectly clear that you do not wish to deal with them when they question your integrity. You paid your bill on time, followed all their requests to the letter and found yourself being treated in an unacceptable way from the first. While you do appreciate the excellent skill of the surgeon and thank him for all the extra care he took to do the operation well, you are far from pleased with the before and after care situation.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, you posted on Wednesday, the day after surgery, while he was still there, that you had "scratched" some of the blood off his back, so we knew then it was an issue.
Tried to research the blood scald thing and couldn't find specifics. However, there was one site that said exactly what my vets had told me years ago. When you have a weeping or draining wound, it's a good idea to put vaseline on the surrounding skin where the blood serum might drip to protect it. The idea is to avoid hair loss and the skin's being damaged.
I'm glad Ace is home in your care and that you have switched vets. By insulting you like that, the first practice loses all credibility themselves. Too bad.
On the plus side Jean I have incredible news of ace for tomorrow. I'm going to make you w it for it!
ReplyDeleteC
Wow, they need some lessons in customer service don't they? Crikey what a way to handle a customer .... Arrogant is the right word!
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to tomorrow's news
It's worth waiting for :-)
DeleteC
Jean, you're exactly right, I was told that when T returned home from his surgery as his eye was weeping blood/serum. The recommended applying it twice a day to prevent the scalding.
ReplyDeleteAs for those vets, sorry you had that experience. Hopefully you will get a better standard of care with your new practice.
Glad to hear Ace is looking good :-)
Oh yes, he's looking good!
ReplyDeleteC
i expect they're required, like the rest of us, to have a complaints procedure and get fined for not dealing with complaints in an appropriate and professional manner - we certainly get our buts wiped if we get complaints handling wrong.. so see what the RCVS says ......dear me..
ReplyDeleteHe's mortified now Claire I don't hi k he'll make the same mistake again.
ReplyDeleteC