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 such duress from the sustained, merciless coercion to allow this incredibly eager Massey ICU "vet" to "terminate" him, and if I'd been given the space 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 vet would have (a) seen immediately that the reality of his "condition" was that he had actually been (very heavily) sedated and had almost certainly
not
suffered any "neurological event", and
(b) sought his notes in real time from Massey.
Thus, if there was the possibility of their being able to assist Harry’s system to purge itself of the overdosing, he 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.
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?
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 you made it your mission to wear me down and the nearly two hours you 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 offer a second opinion proactively to ensure the integrity of the decision.
But Massey and Steffi did the opposite. They
accelerated.
By failing to suggest a "Clinical Pause" - and by actively instructing me to "hold him down" during his screams and his powerful kicks - Massey 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 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) uber-dangerously heavily sedated and who was screaming to be heard.
