This Is Almost Unbelievable

A most unusual and shocking case was revealed to me last night.

A caregiver who constantly applies to our fund for subsidy had brought another stray cat to the vet for neutering. The caregiver thought the cat was female and told the vet so.

This is not the regular vet but a trainee vet.

The trainee vet proceeded with the surgery which was the normal OHE for female cats and could not find the uterus or ovaries.

I don’t know how long it took before the trainee vet realised the cat was actually a male.

The cat was then sewn back and his testicles removed (as in a normal castration).

The caregiver was aghast and reprimanded the trainee vet, but was told, in defence, “Why did you say it was a female in the first place?”

The cat (thankfully!!) is alright now, and is recuperating, but appears to be extremely angry, according to the person who reported it to me.

I don’t blame the cat. Poor thing. If only he could have spoken, he might have said, “Please…I am a boy, you’re doing the wrong surgery on me!”

Hence, our Yellow tshirt message becomes all the more meaningful in this case:

We hope nothing untoward will happen to the cat due to this careless mistake of this trainee vet.

I had always thought it was standard procedure for the vet to do a physical examination on the animal before doing any procedure. Looks like they either don’t teach this in vet school, or this trainee may have overlooked it, or there is another side to the story which I have not been told, so let’s not jump to conclusions and let’s just state the facts as it is without any finger-pointing until we really know the whole story.

The facts are: The cat was OHE-ed but it is a male.

I don’t know if he was a cryptochid or not, though. I did not ask as the one who told me the story was quite upset, so I just listened.

The moral of the story thus far: Perhaps a safer thing to do would be to tell the vet (trainee or not) that we do not know the gender of the cat, and insists that the vet checks. And always BE present when the animal is being examined.

Disclaimer: The above story was related to me by a friend of the caregiver who has applied for the subsidy. I have no channels to verify the authenticity of this story nor do I want to. The purpose of writing it is, whether it is true or not, to gently remind everyone to be extremely careful as humans (vets, doctors and others, including we ourselves) do make mistakes sometimes, and it would help the animals very much if we take the necessary precautionary steps to prevent anything untoward from happening to those who cannot speak up for themselves.

Updates: I spoke to a few people, and apparently, such cases have happened quite OFTEN, not only done by trainee vets, but by qualified vets too. It is like human doctors cutting off the wrong foot in humans. That sounds pretty bad, I know, but considering how many medical personnels are involved in preparing a human for surgery and that all the surgeon looks at is the part he is supposed to operate on (all else is covered), I suppose such things can happen.

The other “maybe” is that perhaps the cat above had both testicles inside his body?

Source: http://myanimalcare.org/2012/04/24/this-is-almost-unbelievable/

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AnimalCare is a registered society that promotes caregiving to street animals and helps in their neutering and medical needs. AnimalCare has a Medical Fund, Food Fund and Education Fund.

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