Attard Vet Clinic Defends Itself After Cat-Owner ‘Dictatorship’ Condemnation
A popular Attard veterinary clinic has taken to social media to defend itself after a cat-owner accused it of not taking proper care of her pet, leading to wider calls for a boycott of the clinic.
“As some of you may know there is a person spreading a story about a claim of having been refused medical care for her pet. It is worth pointing out that there are two sides to every story,” Dr Trevor’s Veterinary Clinic said in a statement last night.
It all started when Neri Ucar took her cat, who suffers from an ongoing medical condition, to the clinic. However, she says she was greeted in a rude manner, and wasn’t given a chance to explain her pet’s medical history before things took a turn for the worse.
She said she had been advised by a different vet in her home country to take a sample from the wound.
“He replied that he needs to sedate her, but suddenly he opened the wound very roughly,” she said. “He was not wearing any gloves, did not sterilise his hands and he was not wearing any medical mask. When he opened the wound, I made a natural emotional reaction but surprisingly, after my emotional reaction, he said: ‘Okay leave because we are not co-operating. You do not want to sedate her and you do not want me to do it the way I am doing it.'”
“He told me to go to another clinic and that I am banned from his clinic. I told him that his approach is unacceptable but if he does not want to look after my cat, there were four more vets in his clinic and they can do it. He said that he is the owner of the clinic and he is not giving any permission to any vet to treat my cat,” Ucar continued.
“Animals deserve respect as much as people. Any vet who refuses treatment to an animal should be severely punished.”
Her post was shared widely within the animal community, with others chiming in to say that the clinic should be boycotted.
However, the clinic itself took to social media to give their side of things, saying they followed their procedure as usual.
“Without directly entering the specifics of this particular case, we would like to explain our clinic policy, whereby a person, through his or her own behaviour, is responsible for their pet not getting the treatment they need,” the clinic said.
Publishing a list of rules they follow, the clinic said it reserved the right to refuse treatment to anyone refusing the follow clinic rules, acting abusively towards staff members or other patients, and insulting staff members or indeed other vets: “in this case, at our colleagues from APH hospital (the owner was requested on to different occasions to refrain from insulting the other vets in our presence).”
“We were also falsely accused of charging fictitious amounts of money, over a number of days of treatment in which the patient showed no improvement.”
The veterinary drama led to many animal-lovers and pet-owners choosing sides, with many saying that they had always been served well at the clinic, while others accused them of not caring about animals.
“You guys offer a great service,” said one person. “I came to you guys late on Saturday evening, with a kitten who only weighed 150 grams and was on death’s door. Thanks to the doctor who attended her and the service offered, she is now thriving!”
“Our cat has just been there, and I agree, no customer service at all for all the hundreds of euros you pay,” said another person. “Very rude and no emotion at all towards the suffering pet.”
The clinic finished their statement by saying that without trust in the client/doctor relationship, there’s no way the doctor can continue providing care.
“In such a lack of trust situation, no matter how good the treatment provided is, the client would always question our professional decisions when it comes to treating the patient, even when it comes to simply bandaging,” they said.
“And when it comes to the hollow and unfounded accusation that we ‘only see money, money is our priority’,” they ended, “we have various NGOs, animal sanctuaries and other individual caring volunteers general who help strays without any government help, who can all vouch for the fact that when it comes to treating animals, while we run the business in a serious and ethical way, profit is definitely not our main motivator. The well-being of animals is!”
What do you make of this vet situation?
READ NEXT: Malta's Domestic Violence Unit Received Five Reports A Day Since Its Opening In October
