So I take my Mastiff mix puppy to the vet on the morning of Dec 29th. She was getting 4 different procedures done at once, spay, double dew claws removed from hind legs, last 2 baby teeth pulled, and micro chipped. I pick her up at 4:30 and take her home.
The following day at about 10:30am the vet calls me. I tell them she is doing great etc, etc. Then the vet says: Well Mr. Duncan, the reason we called is… (I thought, oh shit here we go.) … after doing the post op count on the surgical items, we are one sponge short. We think we may have left a sponge in your dog. I took a deep breathe before going off.
I said, “I understand that everyone is human, and we all make mistakes. However, how is it that I’m discussing this with you almost 24 hours after the surgery took place? How was this not realized sooner?” To sum it up, I agreed to take her back the following morning to have them open her back up.
The next afternoon we pick her up and they say that the sponge must have been misplaced or the count was incorrect, there was no sponge inside my dog. I then looked at her incision and it was extended and inch on each end of the original cut. (Leads me to believe they did find it, and won’t confess to it.) They said it was enlarged so they could see better. What ever. I asked for the $200 for just the spay procedure to be refunded and they did so. (original bill was $474.)
A week later a spot they cut the second visit started getting infected. I go to the vet, they take a look and say they’ll give me some antibiotics. I tell the vet tech, I’m not paying for this visit, considering this area should have never been cut if it wasn’t for the sponge incident. He says, yeah, I’ll write it up as a brief exam so it’ll be cheaper. I then told him, I’m walking out of here with my dog, a bottle of pills, and not a nickel out of pocket, if not, I can’t guarantee you’ll be walking out of here! I left with everything free of charge.
WTF!! Who else has this kinda luck? Just had to vent. My dog is doing fine now.