- Elizabeth Starling
- Note : 0/10
- samedi 23 décembre 2017 à 23:30
I chose this vet because it was listed in Google as having a native English speaking vet, and when I contacted them for an appointment, I was given an appointment with that native speaker, Dr. Campbell. However, when I arrived, they instead set me up with Dr. Boullanger, a non-native English speaker who had difficulties understanding me throughout the entire appointment.
As it was my cat's first visit, I came in with all of her paperwork - vaccination records, blood test results, import paperwork from the US - none of which he cared to look at until after the appointment was over and I essentially demanded he take them. Nor did he have any interest in her medical history. My 10-year-old cat was FeLV+. And yet when I told him this, he said that that can't be true, since "if she had FeLV, she would be dead by now. She would have died by the time she was 3". Nevermind that he didn't ask when she contracted it, or the fact that the disease is known to lay latent in some cats for many years. When I told him that she has been tested positive multiple times for FeLV by several different vets, and transmitted it to my late kitten, causing her death, his response was "okay, whatever". His callous response to such a tragedy should have been my cue to run, but for my cat's sake, I stayed. I didn't know when I could get an appointment with a different vet, and I knew she needed urgent help.
He began the exam, with his veterinary assistant cowering by the door and not helping him in any way. He went straight for my cat tried to take her temperature without trying to pet her or otherwise calm her first, so naturally, being in a strange environment with a stranger trying to shove something up her anus, my cat hissed and growled. Again, the vet assistant did nothing, forcing me to try to calm her down. Dr. Boullanger just held her more roughly, causing her to hiss more. At this point, although she had not even attempted to bite or claw him, he declared her to be "an aggressive animal" and refused to continue the exam unless I paid 60 CHF to have her anaesthetised. He said she was "a danger to himself and his staff". Again, this is a 10-year-old fat and pampered house cat, she sleeps next to my face every night and has never attacked anyone, but he didn't care. He was willing to put her in danger (because again, he never asked for her medical history) because she hissed at him and his assistant was too scared to help him perform the exam. With no choice but to agree, since he would not even look at her further without knocking her out, he brought in a metal cage and forced me to put her in myself so he could take her away like some wild beast. He did not have me sign any kind of paperwork consenting to the anaesthesia, and did not tell me what kind he would be using. He told me to go home, but I stayed in the office because I was so worried about his horrible treatment of her.
When she came back an hour later, her paw shaved (how did her shave her paw if she was so "aggressive"?), he told me nothing more than "her bloodwork is as healthy as a young cat" and told me he'd "treat the symptoms". He gave me a copy of the blood test results but did not explain any of them, leaving me to go home and Google the different acronyms to see what exactly they were (I still have not found them all), and to worry about why some of the values were out of the normal range but he said she was perfectly healthy. Then I was left to take her away.
At the front desk, he gave me some digestive food packets, a tube of probiotics, and two satchels of pills, asking if I would be okay giving her pills "so they don't have to". Again, if she was so aggressive that he had to knock her out for a simple blood draw, why would he think it was okay for me to give her pills? Moreover, I specifically told him I'd be out of town for a few days that week, and yet he gave me a course of treatment that would take more than a week to complete. I paid my money and left, minus 400 CHF and plus one very disoriented and fearful cat.
Later, I was looking at the bill and found out he charged me $25 for something he had not discussed with me, and was just listed on the bill as an "injection". I had to email him to find out what that was, and in his response he told me he was too busy to discuss her treatment with me during the appointment (despite there being only one other person in the waiting room at the time), and that I should be thankful he had not charged me more.
Several days later I received the ANIS card I paid $50 for, only to find out that most of the information was either incorrect or completely missing. I had to contact ANIS myself to get the information added and corrected.
I contacted him through Facebook, detailing my mistreatment, and their only reaction was two "laughing" emoticons, followed by reporting my review to Facebook to have it removed, further proving their callousness.
And weeks later, when my cat was still sick and I consulted a new vet, I found out he didn't even do the basic bloodwork for chronic inflammation or feline infectious peritonitis, which are pretty obvious reasons for chronic feline diarrhea. He didn't feel her sides to see that her intestines are filled with fluid, he didn't do an x-ray to see she has a tumor. All things that a real vet would do. And because he neglected to do all of these very basic things, and because he treated her like a monster instead of a patient, she died. Her death could have been prevented, but he didn't do anything a good vet should.