Being Refused the Right of A Second, External Opinion Cost My Beloved Dog His Life . . . Quite Unnecessarily
FOR LATEST INVESTIGATION FINDINGS, GO HERE. MY STRONG ADVICE TO FELLOW PET PARENTS: AVOID MASSEY UNIVERSITY'S COMPANION ANIMAL 'HOSPITAL' AT ALL COSTS & THIS 'VET' IN PARTICULAR.
Being refused the right of a second, external opinion cost my precious little Harry his life . . . and quite unnecessarily so.
The tragic irony is, that if I had not been under such duress from the sustained, merciless coercion to allow this incredibly eager Massey ICU "vet", "Steffi", to "terminate" him, and if I'd been given the space (especially since I multiple times indicated to them that I was, at the time, grossly sleep-deprived; it's even in the vet's own Clinical Summary!), to think objectively enough for it to have occurred to me to take Harry away from Massey and seek a second opinion, even if just from the nearest local vet clinic, that second, independent vet would have:
(a) seen immediately that the reality of Harry's "condition" was that he had actually been (very heavily) sedated and had almost certainly
not suffered the "neurological event" that they had misrepresented him to me as having had ), and
(b) sought his notes in real time from Massey, which would also have resulted in the discovery that Massey ICU staff had given him repeated doses of a contraindicated convenience sedative, totaling a cumulative 500% - 750% overdosing and cumulative toxic load approaching a near-coma outcome.
Thus, if there was the possibility of an outside veterinarian being able to assist Harry’s system to purge itself of the massive overdosing, Harry would be sitting here in my office with me now.
Note, though, that in my headline for his article, I have referred to “& A Third Opinion", If Necessary. The reason: I do not have faith in the professional “courage” of all vets to speak against the all-powerful institution that in most instances trained them, and that is seen as the “authority on all things veterinary” in New Zealand.
New Zealand has a thriving and long-surviving loyalty network – one that's based not only on (often misplaced) loyalty, but in some instances, worse still, on pure professional cowardliness.
This "loyalty network" creates a vacuum where accountability goes to die.
The Second (Or Third) Opinion Is Your RIGHT & Their OBLIGATION
In an environment where the "gold standard" marketing facade is used as a shield rather than a yardstick, the client’s right to a second opinion is often treated as a nuisance or an act of disloyalty to the clinician, rather than the vital clinical safeguard it is recognised to be internationally.
To 'Steffi': As Inconvenient As They Would Have Been in Light of Your Determined Objective, Did You Never Learn of Your Obligations Under International 'Best Practice' Codes of Conduct?
UPDATE FEBRUARY 14th: "STEFFI" DIDN'T WANT ME GETTING ANY SECOND OPINIONS. WHY, VERY SPECIFICALLY? READ THE HORRIFYING REASONS HERE. THEY ARE FAR WORSE EVEN THAN ORIGINALLY THOUGHT. HARRY HAD NOT ONLY BEEN CATASTROPHICALLY AND REPEATEDLY OVERDOSED WITH A "CONVENIENCE" SEDATING COCKTAIL, HE HAD BEEN DESIGNATED TO BECOME A LAB RAT FOR A STUDENT CELL PHONE FILM FESTIVAL, AFTER WHICH THE PLAN WAS TO DISPOSE OF HIM.
Under the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) Code of Professional Conduct - a standard Massey claims to emulate - the duty to facilitate a second opinion is NOT optional.
Section 1.1 explicitly states: "Veterinary surgeons should facilitate a client's request for a referral or second opinion."
Crucially, in a euthanasia context, international best practice demands a "Clinical Pause".
When a client is under extreme psychological duress, the AAHA (American Animal Hospital Association) End-of-Life Care Guidelines mandate a collaborative partnership.
This partnership requires the veterinarian to ensure the owner is not making a terminal decision under "distress-induced tunnel vision".
If there is even a shadow of doubt (and, By God, I repeatedly expressed far more than a shadow of doubt both on the nearly one-hour shock phone call in which this "Steffi" made it her mission to wear me down and the probably more than one additional hour she spent coercing me upon my arrival, including the psychological ploy of bringing him into the consulting room with the completely unauthorised infrastructure of euthanasia already implanted in his leg) as there clearly was with Harry’s "vocalisations" and physical strength - the international standard is to facilitate a second opinion proactively to ensure the integrity of the decision.
But "Steffi" did the opposite. She accelerated. She intensified. And she was relentless.
By failing to suggest a "Clinical Pause" - and by actively instructing me to "hold him down" during his screams and his powerful kicks when he showed signs of starting to push his way out of his heavily (undisclosed by "Steffi") sedated state - Massey and Steffi didn't just breach the New Zealand Animal Welfare Act 1999; they violated the very "international gold standard" they point to liberally in their marketing.
True excellence in veterinary medicine is not measured by the size of the hospital, but by the courage of the clinicians to say:
"You are in distress. Let's get a fresh set of
external, independent eyes (in this case, given my extreme doubt and active and repeated objections, from what should have been a clinic entirely outside the Massey umbrella and its professional loyalty loops) -
on this before we do something that cannot be undone."
Massey’s failure to do so confirms they are not an institution of healing, but an institution of ego, incompetence and deceptiveness - one where the "loyalist network" is more important than the life of a precious little blind dog entrusted to their "care" and who was unnecessarily and (undisclosed to his owner) catastrophically over-sedated . . . and who was screaming to be heard.
Read also:
ICU Vet, Massey Neurologist & Dean of School: Dangerously Deficient or Just Plain Dangerous?
NOT ‘Euthanasia’ . . . A Cover-Up & A Coerced Termination Under False Pretences
The Gabapentin Gamble That Didn't Pay Off & the Cover-Up That Necessitated Death
Or read the entire 'The Killing of Harry Kelly' Series here.
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