Did my vet commit malpractice?

[doran]

My 10 month old cat was a perfectly healthy cat. Suddenly he started throwing up a lot and we brought him to the 24 hour animal hospital. They discovered he had eaten some string and it got stuck in his intestines. They had to perform surgery to get it out and they claimed he would be fine. Everything they told us about his condition made it seem as though he was getting better. Then we contacted our normal vet who had been keeping up with animal hospital and she said that they said he wasn't doing to well. We called them and apparently he got a skin infection even though they claimed to be giving him antibiotics and had the wound bandaged. They said they had cut away the infection and he was due home by the end of the weekend. Suddenly today they called us and said he has taken a turn for the worst and his infection spread really deep. We thought his infection was cut away and when we asked they told us his infection was not a skin infection and went all the way through his stomach. They claimed that when they took of the bandage their was a lot of pus and the infection had been spreading for a few days. They claimed to have been changing the bandages every day. They then informed us that we had 10 minutes to decide if we won't to keep going or put him to sleep. They said they had him cut open, sitting on the operating table waiting. We had to put him to sleep sadly and now we are being charged $5,000 for a dead cat.

[said99]

sorry to hear... but sometimes things happen even when humans have surgery things can go wrong theres always a risk of death...

malpractice i'm not sure thats the case.. once we had a dog die while being neutered (he was allergic to general anesthesia and they couldnt save him :( ) but the vet didnt charge us for anything....and even took care of the cremation for us...

[gerard]

I find it very hard to deal with this situation. I was involved with a somewhat similar situation. I also lost my beloved fur person due to mis-diagnosis of the part of the vet. My only recourse was to refuse to pay the bill and months later inform the collection agency as to the particulars of the situation and whom I informed as to the particulars of the situation, at which point the vet backed down and did not pursue the collection. Unfortunately, our legal system does not recognize the loss of a fur person as a personal tragedy. You really have no legal recourse other than what I have mentioned above.