No Victory to Declare: CVO Response and a Warning to those with Pets

In a letter dated April 23, 2018 which acknowledged our “concerns” about veterinary accountability and transparency, College of Veterinarians of Ontario Registrar and CEO Jan Robinson made no reference to the petition which 624 of you signed and many of you commented on. Robinson indicated that the College is committed to improving, but dismissed our stated demand for a fuller public register that could actually protect the public from dangerous vets. It should be noted that the College of Physicians and Surgeons does include information on its public register about doctors who have NOT been formally disciplined, but whose practices HAVE warranted a caution or remediation from their complaints committee. The College of Veterinarians is apparently proposing that remediation of vets be noted on the public register; however, so few vets are actually even tasked with remediation that this “transparency” measure is next to meaningless. The vast majority of veterinary complaints are met with written “advice”—even in a case like ours, in which there was ample evidence that the veterinarian failed to meet practice standards, didn’t deny it, and our beloved pet died a preventable death. Jan Robinson did not specifically address the demand for more than one public member on the CVO Complaints Committee, only stated that the CVO was proposing an increase of two to four more people “appointed by the government” to serve on the College Council. The aim is to have a “balanced, diverse, risk focused voice”. None of this fancy bureaucratic language was in the least reassuring. The following hyperlink provided by Robinson may interest some of you: https://cvo.org/For-the-Public/Public-Consultations/Modernizing-the-Veterinarians-Act.aspx It is our heartfelt wish that you all understand how critical it is to question your veterinarian. Vets are obligated to obtain fully informed written consent for anesthesia and procedures that place animals at significant risk. The vet in our case did not. The requisite form was entirely lacking in the file because we didn’t sign one, nor were we in any way appropriately informed about the significant risks our pet faced. Veterinarians are obligated to monitor and record an anesthetized patient’s vital signs every 5-10 minutes. There was no anesthesia monitoring record in our cat’s file, and no reason to believe such monitoring even occurred. Vets are supposed to install a breathing tube and an IV catheter so that an animal can be assisted in the case of an adverse anesthetic event. In our case, the vet did not do this, nor did she deny that a tube and catheter were not placed. Vets are obligated to communicate abnormal test results. The vet in our case chose not to tell us about a platelet reading of 2 (normal is 250), providing the CVO with a constantly changing set of stories as to why she did not. There is no lack of evidence of substandard care here, yet the CVO Complaints Committee responded to these failures and others with “advice” only. The point is: there might be standards online or on paper, but they are simply not enforced by the CVO. Warning Animal lovers, please be aware that if your pet is harmed or dies, as ours did, from substandard care, the veterinarian WILL NOT be held appropriately accountable by the veterinary regulatory body, and the public WILL NOT be protected from the dangerous vet. Please be warned: Never operate on trust alone! Always, always ask about risks. Always ask about anesthetic monitoring. Do not let your animal be anesthetized unless you are confident that the person tasked with monitoring, usually an RVT, is truly competent. Like the institution that governs them, veterinarians do not necessarily operate with integrity, knowledge, competence or with a commitment to reducing risk and harm. Your pet’s life is truly in YOUR hands. Choose your veterinarian with the utmost care. It is not an exaggeration to say that when veterinary negligence or malpractice occurs, the CVO will do nothing. It simply does not care. We can declare no victory other than that of heightening your awareness.