When a veterinary hospital of 'teaching' status takes a full suite of blood samples from a senior patient, they are establishing a baseline of truth. Those samples are the clinical map. Or they are
meant
to be.
In the case of Harry, those samples were drawn
before I left the building. The hospital knew his history; they knew his age; and they knew they were looking for the specific metrics of his renal (kidney) function.
Yet, while those tubes of blood were either still being processed, or worse still were actually in their hands, Massey’s Companion Animal Hospital personnel engaged in a display of professional recklessness that defies the Veterinary Code of Conduct:
They administered Gabapentin.
The Recklessness of the ‘Blind' Dose
Gabapentin is a drug that relies almost entirely on the kidneys to be cleared from the body. In a patient with renal impairment – among the very conditions they were testing for – the drug does not exit the system. It accumulates. It moves from a sedative to a toxin.
By administering this drug before checking the results of the bloods they had just drawn, or worse still after actually being in possession of them, Massey personnel engaged in a clinical "blind-fire". They ignored the co-morbidity they were actively testing for, creating a state of toxicity in a senior dog who had no way to clear the chemical from his system.
And worse still, they did it for their own convenience. Sedatives in this category should only ever be administered
(a) to alleviate pain, or
(b) in preparation for surgery. Neither applied to Harry. What DID apply, is that this little blind dog had just been taken from his owner’s arms and deposited in a cold steel cage in (to him) a terrifying environment, and with two ICU staff who paid him nil attention; they were too engaged in their social discussion and their fascination over a new-born kitten.
My attempts to draw Harry’s need for human comfort to their attention were summarily ignored; instead I was shunted out of the ICU. And he was drugged.
The Multiplier Effect: Lethal Potentiation
And it didn't stop with a single drug. Knowing that Harry’s system was already struggling to process the Gabapentin, personnel then administered a
secondary sedative. In clinical pharmacology, this is known as
Potentiation. When you combine two central nervous system (CNS) depressants, the second drug doesn't just add to the first – it
multiplies the effect.
In a dog with compromised kidneys, this combination acts as a chemical straightjacket.
By stacking these drugs, Massey personnel didn't just sedate Harry; they effectively shut down his ability to manifest normal neurological responses. They didn't just "relax" him; they induced a profound pharmacological collapse.
The Forensic Deception: ‘The Neurological Event’
When I returned to the hospital, I was not met with an admission of this compounded drug reaction. Instead, I was presented with a fabricated narrative:
"He is having a neurological event".
This is where clinical negligence transforms into
Clinical Fraud.
- The Clinical Reality: A senior dog is given a toxic "stack" of drugs his body cannot process, resulting in predictable ataxia, sedation, and collapse.
- The Institutional Cover-Up: The personnel (headed by ICU vet, “Steffi”) reframe the symptoms of their own pharmacological overdose of Harry as a spontaneous, natural "brain event".
By labelling the drug-induced state as "neurological", Massey personnel shifted the blame from their needles to Harry’s biology. They used the symptoms they
created to justify the "inevitability" of the euthanasia they were about to coerce.
The Demand for Metadata
We are now demanding the precise digital metadata of the following sequence:
- The Timestamp of the Blood Draw.
- The Timestamp of the Blood Results (when they hit the internal system).
- The Timestamp of the Gabapentin Administration.
- The Timestamp of the Secondary Potentiating Drug.
If the results were available and ignored, it is
malpractice. If the drugs were given before the results were checked, it is
reckless.
But presenting the resulting collapse as a "neurological event" is a calculated deception designed to shield the hospital from the consequences of their own incompetence.
And – between a phone call and a consulting room hard-core pressure session – spending upwards of two hours in an endeavour to
coerce Harry’s owner (me) into signing “euthanisation” consent forms to destroy the evidence
in the form of Harry himself, is nothing short of
the most evil brand of Clinical Fraud there is.
And it moves squarely from an act of lethally incompetent medical malpractice - to a forensic crime scene.
STOP PRESS: THE TIMESTAMPS.
