Menu
Login
How Toronto Veterinary Emergency Hospital staged my dog’s condition to extort money off of me. When I wouldn’t comply they tortured, drugged, starved and assaulted my dog and laughed about it.
On August 20th, 2022, at 9:15 pm I pulled into Toronto Veterinary Emergency Hospital, located on a secluded side street tucked away in a remote corner. My 11 1/2-year-old Golden Retriever Buddy, had a heatstroke earlier that day. When we arrived to TVEH Buddy was exhausted from excessively panting, dehydrated, sedated and needed some oxygen support and some IV fluids.
Bringing my dog to this hospital to provide him with that support, turned out to be one of the biggest mistakes and regrets I ever made as a pet owner. And it all started with one lie.
“Buddy is in ICU right now,”
These were the first words that came out of the admitting ER Dr. Christian Catalano’s mouth after I told him I strictly wanted non-invasive oxygen support and IV fluids for Buddy. And I didn’t want anything else to be done to my dog.
I explained what happened to Buddy several hours earlier when we were at the beach, and when Buddy began panting after we were hit with an intense heatwave.
I told Dr. Catalano Buddy did not have any other significant health issues, other than arthritis.
Dr. Catalano, who finished taking Buddy’s bloodwork began discussing doing an MRI and surgery for Buddy. He told us Buddy could have a blood clot, he could’ve had a stroke. Even though there wasn’t any evidence of that.
What there was evidence of was an infection, something I suspected Buddy might have had resulting from his surgery three months ago. This would’ve made Buddy more susceptible to heatstroke but Dr. Catalano never mentioned this to us.
Dr. Catalano then suggested an ultrasound of Buddy’s heart because Buddy might have a tumour.
I told Dr. Catalano that was unlikely because Buddy had an ultrasound done less than three months ago on his heart and there wasn’t any sign of a tumour so it was hard to believe that the X-rays Dr. Catalano just took picked that up but the ultrasound didn’t.
He agreed, in that case, there likely wasn’t a tumour on his heart.
Dr. Catalano then said my dog wasn’t responsive. I told him that wasn’t true, he was responsive coming out of the car. He was also dehydrated and exhausted and sedated with 1200mg of gabapentin to keep him calm.
I told Dr. Catalano Buddy has separation anxiety and anxiety around barking animals which is why I drugged him with gabapentin before we came in.
Dr. Catalano went back to check on my dog and told us Buddy was fine and resting. He told my mother and me that Buddy had a bit of fluid in his lungs and said antibiotics and diuretics would help with that.
I said I was okay with this, but I was very protective of Buddy and I felt uneasy leaving him alone and overnight. I told Dr. Catalano that I only consent to the use of fluids and non-invasive oxygen therapy, and I approved the use of antibiotics and diuretics on my dog.
Nothing else was to be used or done to my dog outside of this protocol.
I also told him not to use any anesthesia on Buddy because I had very serious concerns about the life-threatening effects anesthesia had on him after his surgery three months ago. And the effects it had on his heart, which seemed to have resolved a few weeks later according to the ultrasound we took.
I saved Buddy’s life after his operation when I found him barely breathing inside a cage when I went to pick him up at his vet’s office. I forced the vet to put him on an oxygen mask and IV fluids for six straight hours until Buddy could finally breathe on his own. The vet used anesthesia reversal on Buddy also. The experience was very traumatic for both of us.
Because Dr. Catalano was making all these dramatic claims, including ones I knew were false I told Dr. Catalano to be patient and careful with Buddy.
Dr. Catalano said he understood. He said Buddy was resting and that he’d give Buddy time and then told us to go home for the night.
15 minutes after I left the hospital, Dr. Catalano went against my consent and he shoved a tube into my dog’s stomach without disclosing he would do this. Without ever telling us why he did this to my dog. He then tried to hide the X-rays to keep me from finding out about them.
A few hours later he drugged my dog into a coma and lied about it.
On August 21, at 4:36 am Dr. Catalano called me to tell me Buddy was perfectly normal; his vitals were all good, his motor response was great, and Buddy was breathing well on his own. He told me he gave Buddy a light sedative at 4:00 am to keep Buddy calm so he wouldn’t get scared because he seemed a bit freaked out.
I told Dr. Catalano this would happen. Buddy wouldn’t even let me use the bathroom at his vet’s or his chiropractor’s office without chasing after me and barging through the washroom door. Buddy wouldn’t go anywhere unless he knew I was going to be by his side.
Even though Dr. Catalano told me Buddy was normal, he began pressuring me to do surgery on him in case he had La Par, without even explaining what La Par was.
To diagnose La Par, it takes about 15 minutes for an exam. Dr. Catalano had between 10:00 pm and 7:00 am the next morning to do this exam before telling me Buddy even needed it. He never did this exam.
He wanted to tell me my dog needed a $6000 surgery whether my dog needed it or not. He also started pushing for an MRI again.
The phone suddenly got disconnected. I made repeated calls to the hospital trying to get through to Dr. Catalano again. It was unclear why he recommended doing surgery and an MRI when I already told him about my objections to anesthesia.
Or why he mentioned the need to do an MRI when he said my dog was normal?
I finally got through to him again.
I asked him if there were any alternatives other than surgery to manage La Par if Buddy had it because I did not want anesthesia to be used on him. He said the treatment would be to have a dog take medication and lose a bit of weight. I said that’s good.
I told him I wasn’t interested in the MRI.
He then said. “Don’t worry, he won’t need to go on a ventilator,”
I said I didn’t want that for my dog. And I had no idea why Dr. Catalano mentioned a ventilator. We never discussed putting Buddy on a ventilator in the exam room. I told Dr. Catalano if Buddy had any issues with his breathing Dr. Catalano was instructed to use an oxygen mask on my dog.
He did not have my consent to perform anything invasive. I made that clear.
In the morning, coincidently just before another Doctor started her shift, Dr. Catalano did the unimaginable. He drugged my dog into a coma.
An hour later he shoved a tube down my dog’s throat and left a cocktail of anesthetic drugs dripping into my dog to keep my dog from waking up and breathing on his own.
To stage a lie.
To have the hospital claim my dog had “La Par” and that my dog had suffered a brain injury and my dog needed surgery and an MRI.
When I called the hospital to check on Buddy at 9:20 am, I was transferred by the front desk receptionist to a technician. When I spoke to her she told me my dog went into a coma. And my dog needs a tube to breathe.
Imagine your dog goes into a coma and you have to call the hospital to find out hours later that he’s in one. And that he now needs a tube to breathe.
When I asked the technician if the coma was drug-induced the technician said my dog didn’t receive any sedative drugs the entire time he’s been inside the hospital from the time I dropped him off.
Which I knew was a lie because Dr. Catalano told me he gave my dog a sedative at 4:00 am and I wanted to know what that sedative was. And why my dog was suddenly in a coma and now on a breathing tube.
The technician maintained that Buddy wasn’t given any sedatives the entire time he’s been inside the facility.
Throughout the day I repeatedly emailed and left messages for Dr. Catalano and the doctor on shift asking what drugs Dr. Catalano and the hospital used on my dog and what sedatives Buddy was given since he’s been inside the hospital.
Dr. Catalano never returned these calls or these messages. And he maintained in his reports that my dog wasn’t given any sedatives the entire time, even though he told me at 4:36 am that he gave my dog a sedative.
Even though he gave Buddy three more sedatives after we spoke that would’ve coma-induced him.
Those sedatives were butorphanol, acepromazine and propofol.
Dr. Catalano decided to gaslight me and have the entire hospital gaslight me about the fact that he told me he gave my dog a sedative drug. And he had the hospital gaslight me about the fact that he told me my dog was perfectly normal when we spoke at 4:36 am.
There was no way my dog went into a coma by himself.
Dr. Catalano knew I had objections to anesthesia and that I didn’t want an MRI to be done on my dog. He agreed to my protocols but he used anesthesia on my dog anyway without telling me, to claim my dog went into a coma on his own.
To have the hospital pressure me to do an MRI while he omitted all the drugs that he coma induced my dog with. To try to extort $3500 to $6000.00 off of me.
THE CON
Dr. Catalano started this lie and every lie about my dog as soon as he came into the exam room the night we brought Buddy in. When the first thing he said to my mother and I was,
“Buddy is in ICU right now!,” which is how this whole sadistic con got started.
My dog was actually in the hospital part of the facility not in ICU when we arrived. But Dr. Catalano was so calculated that he lied as soon as he entered the exam room about where my dog was inside this facility, to later write in his report that I elected my dog to ICU from the hospital part of the facility.
ICU was the only estimate and the only option he gave me. This is where he said my Buddy was. But that’s not where Buddy was or where Buddy even needed to be.
It’s also the most expensive area to position your animal inside the hospital.
It costs $1260 a day.
This is the place Dr. Catalano said my dog would get the IV fluids and non-invasive oxygen therapy that I remained adamant about my dog only receiving.
Meanwhile, the place for that would’ve actually been in the hospital part of the facility.
He did a bait and switch on us immediately. He then claimed I asked for Buddy to be transferred into ICU. And he wrote in his report that I consented to mechanical ventilation and having my dog placed on a breathing tube.
Which is a lie.
I didn’t ask or consent to mechanical ventilation or a breathing tube for my dog. I even put what I had consented to in writing. But Dr. Catalano decided he was going to get around it.
Dr. Andrew Barkers assessment of Buddy
Dr. Catalano wanted his way with my dog as soon as he saw us. And to torture us and later tell the hospital that I was asking for it and that I had elected my dog into ICU.
A breathing tube was the last thing I wanted for my 11 1/2-year-old dog. My dog never needed it. It didn’t even make sense based on the condition my dog came in that he would require a tube down his throat.
Dr. Catalano lied about everything because he had a plan for my dog.
The estimate he wrote in my dog’s report the night Buddy was admitted was listed at $3500k. Dr. Catalano had every intention of making sure Buddy was going to be in the hospital to cover his two day shift.
Dr. Catalano also lied in his reports about the physical state that my dog was in.
To further justify his fake “suspected La Par” diagnosis and to further try to rationalize why Buddy was put into ICU, Dr. Catalano claimed Buddy had right-sided deficits that we “consistent with la par”.
They weren’t. My dog did not have La par or right-sided deficits.
When he said this to us inside the exam room, I sent him back to check on Buddy because I knew that wasn’t true. Dr. Catalano confirmed Buddy didn’t have right-sided deficits. But he would note in his report that Buddy did.
And he noted that Buddy was neurologically inappropriate. And that I wanted a neurologist to examine Buddy to explain why.
Dr. Catalano lied about every conversation I had with him, repeatedly saying I gave him permission to violate and drug my dog. Which was the last thing I wanted for Buddy. I was very clear when I came in about what I wanted and didn’t want for my dog.
And because Dr. Catalano didn’t care about what I wanted, or what my dog actually needed. He staged his own plan. And it killed my dog.
Because consent did not matter.
Neither did what my dog need or didn’t need inside this hospital.
Based on Buddy’s medical charts, the “coma” Buddy went into before he had a breathing tube go in, was in fact drug-induced. Dr. Catalano gave my dog two anesthetic drugs, to coma induce Buddy with at 6 am.
At 7 am Dr. Catalano dosed Buddy with propofol and put a tube inside my dog, and left a cocktail of anesthesia drugs intravenously dripping into Buddy to keep him from waking up and breathing on his own.
And it would keep Buddy from being removed from the tube.
If Buddy was in respiratory distress and there was an urgent need for a breathing tube, propofol would’ve been administered first to get the tube down. Dr. Catalano wouldn’t have time to coma-induce my dog for an hour before an actual respiratory emergency.
I did not ask for this. My dog didn’t either. But Dr. Catalano had his reasons for placing Buddy in ICU and that reason wasn’t to save Buddy’s life.
Once a patient is deemed “ICU” by VCA, that patient will likely be subject to three choices an MRI, surgery, or euthanasia. And when Dr. Catalano met my mother and me he decided he was only going to give us three options to choose from if I wanted to get my dog back.
And none of those are what my dog needed. Buddy was not critical when we arrived inside TVEH. Not by their standards.
But Dr. Catalano would make sure that he would be. There was a clear incentive for it.
In 2016, the shareholder and director of TVEH Dr. Michael Ethier partnered with CBC to create a documentary called ‘Pets, Vets & Debts’ on CBC’s the Nature of Things. Where TVEH normalized these expensive diagnostics like MRI’s and surgical procedures for patients who enter ICU.
https://www.timescolonist.com/entertainment/small-screen-cbc-doc-delves-into-high-cost-of-veterinary-care-4634765
Buddy was only “critical” when Dr. Catalano’s coma induced him with the exact drugs I told him not to use, and after he shoved a tube down his throat that my dog didn’t need.
Dr. Catalano saw a young female who loved her dog. And even though I was capable of making decisions about what this hospital was to do for my dog and I should’ve had consent, Dr. Catalano was going to make all the rules and then tell everyone that I was asking for it.
He knew that by telling me ICU is where Buddy was and where Buddy would get what I asked for, he could compromise my dog down to those three choices despite every objection I had when I came in.
And he would sentence my dog to the same three-choice fate as an ICU patient unless I agreed to cooperate.
‘As director of the emergency and critical care medicine at the Toronto Veterinary Emergency Hospital, he’s (Dr. Michael Ethier) seen families spend up to $20,000 on their animals.;
“You’re not going to get around it…. It may be a hard figure to swallow, but when you break down the costs — from a weeks-long stay in an intensive care unit to surgery and perhaps transfusions or MRIs — it makes sense,” Dr. Michael Ethier told the Times Colonist.
But it didn’t make sense for my dog.
Drugging my dog into a coma and keeping my dog anesthesia dependent on a breathing tube and lying about my dog having La Par was the perfect way to make sure that we weren’t going to get around it.
A few hours after the technician told me my dog went into a coma and now needed a breathing tube, I received a call from Dr. Francesca DiMauro who would be the next Doctor on shift. She told me Buddy was in a coma and she was afraid to remove the breathing tube because she wasn’t sure if Buddy was going to obstruct or not.
She said she had no idea why Buddy had a breathing tube in his mouth. But thinks he might have La Par. While she herself hadn’t checked and was going off what Dr. Catalano had told her. She said Buddy wasn’t chewing the tube and it didn’t seem normal.
I asked her if Buddy was given any sedatives. She said he was but she turned it off. She said he was still in a coma. I asked her to tell me what he was on. She mentioned he was also on antibiotics.
I had no idea what was going on. I was becoming increasingly worried about how my dog entered this coma and why he had a tube down his throat.
My mother, my neighbour and I went to the hospital to meet with Dr. DiMauro. To see Buddy and make sense of what happened to my dog. We wanted to figure out why he went into a coma and why he was intubated. Dr. DiMauro asked if the coma was drug-induced.
Dr. DiMauro said she had no idea. She said that’s what she was trying to figure out.
“I’m trying to get a sense of what his demeanour was like this week. If he was normal Buddy. If he was the same Buddy this week that he was last year?” she asked
I was taken aback by this statement. I told Dr. Catalano that Buddy was completely normal before the heatstroke episode. I said, “Yes. Even before we left the house that morning he was running around”. Buddy was so excited to be going out for a car ride. I took him to the beach almost every Saturday.
Buddy was even seen by a vet that same morning to get Cartrophen injections for his arthritis. He didn’t think Buddy had any neurological problems at all. He also didn’t think Buddy sounded like he had La Par.
Image of Buddy taken on August 20th at 11:55am at the beach, just minutes before we were hit with a heat wave and his heatstroke began.
Dr. DiMauro told us Dr. Catalano told her my dog was in a coma the whole time he was inside the hospital.
I told her he was responsive to me when he was being brought into the hospital. He looked scared.
I also told her this didn’t make sense that Buddy was in a coma the entire night because Dr. Catalano called me earlier at 4:36 am and said Buddy was perfectly normal and coherent.
Dr. DiMauro said “Oh so he was coherent. He was responsive!,”
She said Buddy was now abnormally sedate and “comatose” off one 15-minute acting sedative. And that was the only thing he was given the entire time he’s been inside the hospital.
Meanwhile, she was well aware of how many drugs Buddy was on. They were listed in the same treatment sheet I asked her and the technician to read off of. She choose to omit the names of those sedative drugs to claim the coma wasn’t drug-induced.
“I suspect that there are a few things going on. I suspect there could be something neurological going on so either something going on with his brain,” she said.
Before allowing us to see Buddy, Dr. DiMauro began telling us we might need to do an MRI to explain why he’s still sedated because he didn’t have any sedative drugs the entire time he’s been inside the hospital.
“When they placed the tube into his trachea… they did give him a little bit of propofol, which is an induction agent but that usually lasts minutes. So he’s been off of that since I came in this morning. And so I think it’s very reasonable to give him time to wake up. But that’s a long time. You know. I’m worried that something going on in his brain.”
I told her I don’t want any anesthesia to be used on my dog. And that they need to allow the drug to wear off.
Dr. DiMauro said “yes of course!”
I said I wanted to see my dog.
We walked over to Buddy who looked exhausted and drugged. He started chewing the tube as soon as we started talking to him. She removed the breathing tube from my dog. My dog was slowly waking up, he was not in a coma.
I asked Buddy if he wanted grandma’s “yum yums” and he began licking his lips. We all started laughing.
Dr. DiMauro was cheerful and she told us, Buddy could go home tomorrow.
She then started talking about his spine again and she asked me if he ever dragged his feet. I said he didn’t. She then said we should do an MRI on his spine in case he did. I told her I’d send her a video of him walking. He didn’t need an MRI for his brain or his spine.
She confirmed Buddy didn’t need a breathing tube and she said he was just sensitive to the “15-minute acting sedative” he was given.
Even though he was on a lot more sedatives than that which she refused to disclose. I agreed to pick him up the following day and allow the drugs to wear off. I didn’t want to move Buddy while he was so sedated.
Dr. DiMauro agreed to keep Buddy off any sedative drugs other than gabapentin or trazodone so he could go home tomorrow. She said a different doctor would be looking after him. I was glad it wasn’t going to be Dr. Catalano. If I had known that I would’ve taken Buddy out of there
Buddy woke up on August 21 at 6:40pm after I instructed Dr. DiMauro to remove the tube.
I should’ve taken Buddy out of the hospital immediately.
DO OR DIE
To my unexpected horror, on August 22nd, at 1:00 am, six hours after the tube was removed. Dr. Catalano, who I had no idea would be back on shift, drugged my dog and called me screaming into my ear, telling me he put the breathing tube back inside of Buddy.
“WE CAN’T KEEP DOING THIS OKAY?! YOU DON’T WANT TO DO AN MRI AND YOU DON’T WANT TO DO A SURGERY THEN IT’S TIME FOR EUTHANASIA!”
-Dr. Christian Catalano
I told him Dr. DiMauro said I wouldn’t need to do the surgery and that she said Buddy could go home tomorrow. Doctor Catalano got frustrated.
“FINE! But you need to do an MRI because you’re not going to get the same Buddy back if you don’t,” And he started laughing.
It didn’t make sense, if he’s not the same dog and he’s brain dead then why would I do a surgery on him?
Yet, I’m somehow meant to believe that an MRI would wake Buddy up and he would no longer need a surgery or be in a coma? Who was this hospital kidding? The con show was over. It was time for Buddy to go home.
I asked him if Buddy still had fluid in his lungs. Dr. Catalano said Buddy never had fluid in his lungs.
I told him I wanted Buddy out of the hospital and that I’d pick him up tomorrow. Dr. Catalano grunted and hung up on me.
I had a bad feeling after this call. A sick feeling.
All this hell they were now putting my dog and I through for a $3500 MRI on my dog’s brain which would involve more anesthesia and could potentially put my 11 1/2 year old dog’s life at risk. Which the hospital never disclosed came with risks but I was aware of them.
Anesthesia is something none of the vets would never even mention was required for an MRI each time they pressured me to do it. Despite the fact that I repeatedly told them about my objections to using anesthesia on my dog.
They used it anyway.
Because consent did not matter. Neither did being informed about anything.
They didn’t tell me that anesthesia was involved for anything they were doing or that they wanted to do to my dog before they did it or while they did it.
As soon as I walked into the hospital when Buddy was first admitted, the first thing I told the receptionist is to make sure anesthesia was not used on my dog. She picked up the phone immediately and let the doctor know.
They also never informed me about the risks of what they were doing either. Because all of this went against what I consented and what the doctor and I agreed on.
The breathing tube and anesthesia was not part of the agreement.
And because I didn’t consent to this, or have any informed consent about what was involved in intubating a dog, they lied about all the drugs they used on my dog to keep him dependant on a breathing tube. And they all said he was in a coma and maintaining the tube inappropriately on his own without anesthesia and that I would have to pay them $3500 to find out why.
I was being charged $1260 a day to keep my dog in their “care,” while they did the very things I asked them not to do and they did the things my dog never needed. The staff lied to me about everything they were doing to my dog to prevent him from leaving.
Then the hospital made threats to kill my dog when they couldn’t monetize off their lies.
On August 22, at 3:30 am, a few hours after Dr. Catalano made this threatening phone call, Dr. Catalano took the tube out of my dog and at 3:45 am he intubated Buddy again with the same invasive breathing tube I asked him and his staff not to use on my dog.
This time he did this so violently he punctured Buddy and caused him to bleed internally.
Only after Dr. Catalano violently re intubated Buddy on August 22nd at would there be a note on my dog’s medical chart claiming that my dog’s laryngeal folds weren’t moving. That would “confirm” Buddy had La Par. And that Buddy suddenly couldn’t last 15 minutes without a breathing tube.
There was nothing noted the night before and he never told Dr. DiMauro that he made this observation himself. Even if he did, the amount of anesthesia he had Buddy on would’ve led to a false diagnosis of La Par.
While assaulting a dog with this same tube could also cause it. Since there wasn’t an actual problem with my dog. Dr. Catalano would use drugs and violence to make one.
Buddys medical treatment sheet
NO SEDATIVE DRUGS
In the reports I demanded the hospital send me each day disclosing the number of drugs Buddy was on, every doctor lied about and the amount, the times, and the type of drugs they had Buddy on.
And every doctor lied about how the conversation between myself and them transpired.
Dr. DiMauro who told us Buddy could go home, dramatically changed the tone of our conversation in her report. She said my dog was never going to be normal again. And that my dog was abnormally tolerating the tube with ‘NO sedatives drugs’. When actually he was on 3 of them, that would’ve made him tolerate the tube.
She began covering up for Dr. Catalano’s assault on my dog. And Dr. DiMauro and Dr. Catalano alleged my dog’s brain was now the problem and the reason Buddy would never have a normal dog again. Not the drugs they lied about using, and not the injuries my dog was now dealing with.
My dog was not only being drugged, prodded and debilitated, but he was being assaulted and insulted in the process. Now he was going to be left to die on that tube because I told the hospital I wanted my dog to go home.
The next day, not yet aware of my dog’s injuries, or how drugged my dog was, I received a call at around 11 am from Dr. Allie Floras who would be assigned to Buddy for the next four days. Who like every other doctor inside this hospital would also lie about all the drugs she used on Buddy, repeatedly.
“He’s still very sedate without him getting much in the way of sedative drugs, so he is tolerating that tube in place much more than normal,” she said.
She tells me that the dog’s suspect that Buddy had laryngeal paralysis and there maybe something else going on.
She told me she had a neurologist by the name of Andrew Barker examine my dog at 9:00am that morning.
Knowing that I wanted to take Buddy home.
The hospital unabashedly used the neurologists’ ridiculous assessment of my dog as ammunition to try to convince me that my dog needed an MRI to explain why he was more sedate than he was since yesterday.
Meanwhile Dr. Floras doesn’t disclose to me that she’s actually increased the amount of sedative drugs that were used on Buddy since yesterday. Despite the fact that Dr. DiMauro agreed to take keep Buddy off sedative drugs.
Floras says,
“Really we need to do something like an MRI on his brain or his spine to see whether there is something like a brain tumour, evidence of a stroke or something going on in his neck that made him significantly worse in the past 24 hours.,”
She also tells me my dog is now having heart palpitations that it started when my dog was intubated overnight. She said this was something new.
How is it that my dog was having more problems with his brain, his breathing and now his heart since he’s entered this hospital? Buddy wasn’t critical when he came in. And if Buddy’s heart was experiencing palpitations it was likely due to their drugs.
I tried to confront Dr. Floras about this during the call but she cut me off. I couldn’t get a word in with her if I tried to question anything they were doing to him.
My dog was not in a coma when I brought him into this hospital. He was alert when I brought him in. He woke up yesterday after being drugged, and now the hospital is telling me he’s significantly worse and it could be a “brain tumour” or an assault to his neck that caused this?
What the hell kind of a hospital is this?
Dr. Floras would note in Buddy’s medical chart that I gave her consent to a neurologist exam. I didn’t. The exam was at 9:00 am that morning and the first time Dr. Floras spoke to me was around 11:00 am.
Consent does not matter to these people.
They don’t give a [censored] about what you want. I didn’t have any say it came to my dog. He was theirs now. I had to play by their rules.
And according to everyone at TVEH, I was asking for it. All of it.
I arrived at the hospital prepared to take Buddy home. When I arrived Buddy was so heavily drugged, it would be the last time I ever saw my dog’s eyes open inside this hospital.
This comes after Dr. DiMauro agreed to not have the hospital use any more drugs on my dog, other than trazodone, so he could go home the next day. She even wrote a prescription for Buddy to take home along with a prescription for antibiotics.
The hospital wasn’t going to allow it to happen anymore.
Dr. Floras knew my dog had sustained very serious injuries from Dr. Catalano even before she made that call to me this morning. She knew she wasn’t going to allow Buddy to leave the hospital because of the damage he had done.
Now that Buddy was on even more sedatives, the hospital wanted me to see Buddy in this “coma,” to convince me he needed an MRI.
The hospital planned to euthanize Buddy after they received $3500 for the MRI. They had no intention of releasing him alive. But they haven’t told me this yet.
I wanted to call her out on why my dog even needed an MRI since I could see he was drugged again. So I asked what the treatment plan would be for him after the MRI.
Floras looked at me shocked that I would even question their motives.
“Nothing”, she said. There wouldn’t be a treatment for anything they find.
They wanted to put my dog through a risky diagnostic test, while he was having heart palpitations and in a coma because of their drugs, for a diagnostics test that wouldn’t even benefit him. And they wanted to charge me $3500 to do it. Even though they were planning to kill him right after.
That’s because they were well aware it wasn’t a tumour that my dog had that was making him worse. It was their drugs, the ones they lied about and refused to disclose they were using on him that’s actually made him worse in the last 24 hours.
And the assault.
I told Dr. Floras Buddy looked like he’d been drugged with anesthesia. Dr. Floras became irritated and told me anesthesia was never used on him since he’s entered the hospital. I could tell she was lying.
I asked Dr. Floras to have the tube removed from Buddy so I could take him home. I told her I wasn’t interested in an MRI or having my dog on their drugs, which was becoming insultingly obvious that he was on and on a lot more now. I told her that it was time for Buddy to leave.
This whole experience was turning into a Sci-Fi horror. I could clearly see all the sick nonsensical gimmicks they were trying to pull by this point. And at the expense of my dogs physical, mental and my emotional health.
I told them to remove the tube and if he had problems oxygenating I wanted a breathing mask on him and for him to be transitioned off of the tube.
The technician pulled the tube without telling me she would do this. As soon as the tube was removed, my dog who was supposedly “absent in all limbs” and “comatose”, stood up on his front paws and immediately began gasping for air.
I wasn’t expecting this. I was traumatized.
Dr. Floras handled my dog like a bull, barely placed the the oxygen mask on his face, and she squeezed shut while Buddy had two nasal prongs still in his nostrils. His mouth and nose was barely covered. The mask didn’t even fit him properly.
Buddy needed to be intubated immediately. He almost died.
My dog was not like this at home. He was not when I brought him into the hospital, he was not like this when I instructed Dr. DiMauro to remove the tube from my dog yesterday.
He was being drugged with anesthesia this time. Deliberately, to stop his breathing. Dr. Floras didn’t tell me that.
But I could tell it was a botched attempt to get him off the tube. No doctor would ever place an oxygen mask on a dog with two nasal prongs stuck in his nose. And use an oxygen mask that didn’t fit.
And no honest and ethical doctor would allow the anesthesia to still be running when the tube needed to be removed unless they wanted your dog to suffocate in front of you. To convince you that your dog had La Par.
Yesterday, Buddy was ready to go home. Today he was on two feet suffocating and gasping for what almost became his last breath.
The tube was filled with dark secretions. Yesterday the tube was clear.
I did not bring my dog to this hospital to die or to have tubes shoved inside of him. I also didn’t bring Buddy here to be tortured by this hospital either because I refused this insane treatment and everything else they were pressurizing me to do that I know my dog didn’t need.
Everything they did against my consent was causing harm to him. And Buddy never needed any of it.
All of this was a sadistic game. But I learned the hard way that if you don’t play by their rules. This is what would happen.
One of the vets at TVEH would admit that Dr. Catalano caused “blunt trauma” to my dog.
My dog didn’t have La Par before coming here. He also wasn’t bleeding internally when I brought him inside this hospital. My dog wasn’t suffocating either. They did this.
HE’S NOT LEAVING
After I left the hospital that evening Dr. Floras called me and told me Buddy needed to be euthanized. I told her I’m not ready. I knew this whole thing was being staged and she drugged him. I just didn’t know with what and how because she said he didn’t get anything since last night when Dr. Catalano re-intubated him.
She said that’s fine, we can allow his swelling to go down but now it’s going to cost me $1400 to keep him in the hospital each day. While she drugged my dog into a deep coma and wouldn’t allow him off the tube.
I asked her if Buddy was being fed. She said he wasn’t and that she wouldn’t be feeding him. I got emotional. I asked about feeding him some nutrients intravenously at least. He’s my dog and he’s 11 1/2 years old.
She refused. She said, “I don’t usually feed them until day 5.”
The only thing this hospital would feed my dog was drugs. The ones I told them not to use. And there wasn’t anything I could do about it.
One of the nasal prongs in Buddy’s nose was a feeding tube. What was the point of placing a feeding tube inside my dog if they never planned on feeding him? Everything was being staged.
I asked Dr. Floras how La Par was diagnosed and if they were certain Buddy had it. Dr. Floras told me it does not require any further diagnostics.
This morning she told me they suspected Buddy had La Par. Now it was confirmed?
I said I couldn’t understand how Buddy’s vet didn’t notice that Buddy had La Par, especially when Buddy was intubated for his surgery. My vet never expressed any concerns about Buddy’s breathing either. Neither did three other vets who saw Buddy in the last three months.
Each time they saw Buddy it was hot out. If Buddy sounded like he had La Par they would’ve heard it in his breathing. Especially if he was nearing the end stage of this disease.
Floras said because they are ICU they always look for it, and that three doctors have made this observation. “Whenever we are intubating a patient regardless of the cause it’s always on our radar to make that assessment.”
She said “regardless of the cause” because she knew Buddy was not in respiratory distress when Dr. Catalano intubated Buddy. He coma induced and put the tube in after to claim he needed a tube to breathe.
Meanwhile, on August 21st, at 7am the first time Buddy was intubated the assessment that there was an ‘absent of arytenoid fold movement’ was never made. Not according to Dr. DiMauro and not according to my dog’s medical charts.
After Dr. Catalano violently assaulted my dog, Dr. Catalano had Dr. DiMauro be the doctor to note that she made this observation on August 21st, and report that she drugged and intubated my dog that morning.
Dr. Catalano absolved himself from coma inducing and intubating my dog because he knew my objections to do this and it was never medically necessary.
While Dr. Catalano told the hospital he had my consent to do this and this is what I asked for.
He was taking advantage of me, my dog and his colleagues while they covered up for him and his brutal assault.
The hospital would use Dr. DiMauro’s report to then claim that Dr. DiMauro was one of the doctors who confirmed this diagnosis. She wasn’t. This hospital couldn’t keep up with a single lie. Including their lies about the number of drugs they had my dog on.
I went to visit Buddy with my mom that evening. The nurses wouldn’t allow us to see him. I couldn’t even visit my own dog. They said I needed to arrange it with Dr. Floras if I wanted to see Buddy. I told the technician that I told Dr. Floras I was coming that evening. They told me to leave.
Pet owners can’t even enter the back where your dog is inside this facility without having an employee escort you with an access card. I couldn’t get around it.
On August 23rd I met with Dr. Floras and I inquired about doing surgery for Buddy. Not because I believed he needed it, but to see what was happening with my dog now that the tube filled with secretions.
Floras said she didn’t think it was a good idea,
“I don’t even think he’s going to make it out alive….. the surgeon would have some concerns she would have to go over with you,” she said.
That’s because La Par wasn’t the issue. It was never the issue. The assault caused by Dr. Catalano and what was coming out of the tube was the reason.
I asked her to do X-rays to explain what condition Buddy was now in so I could understand what was coming out of the tube and what was happening to him.
Dr. Floras refused to do them.
“I don’t like doing tests for the sake of doing tests,” she said.
This is the same doctor that told me to spend $3500 on an MRI yesterday morning that my dog didn’t need to explain why he was sedated while she drugged him with drugs she wouldn’t even disclose she was using. But she wouldn’t allow me to spend $400 on X-rays to be informed about the damage they had done to my dog and if he could actually survive surgery or discharge.
Buddy was an excellent candidate for surgery when he first arrived at TVEH and when they took his X-rays the night he came in. In fact, Dr. Catalano was looking for any excuse to operate on my dog, regardless if my dog need to be operated on or not.
You would think an Emergency Hospital of all places would want to do X-rays now to see if Buddy needed to be attended to for something life-threatening. Especially if it’s something they caused and if he even had a chance of survival or could actually survive discharge.
They didn’t care.
They took 5 additional X-rays of my dog after I left the hospital the first day Buddy was admitted, against my consent, when they assaulted him with one tube. But when I asked them to take x-rays when I suspect my dog might be bleeding out of his chest, they refused.
I learned right away the decisions they made weren’t based on what was best for your animal or what you want. It’s about what they can get out of you. The hospital wasn’t going to make any financial gains if they spent their time attending to the injuries their staff caused to my dog.
They weren’t going to make money if they admitted it either.
Dr. Floras tells me because I declined the surgery, the one she herself said Buddy is no longer a good candidate for because of Dr. Catalano’s assault it’s now going to cost $1800 a day to keep him in their “care”, yesterday she said it was $1400.
Because I declined the MRI and Buddy could no longer be operated on, I didn’t meet their “quota” for an ICU patient. Now I had to make up for it by spending $550 more each day just keeping him in ICU while they did nothing for him, but starve and drug him and leave him to die.
Dr. Floras lied constantly, drugged my dog the most, refused to admit the number of drugs he was on, refused to do X-rays, refused to release my dog and refused to feed him and then gave herself a raise.
This hospital had put me through the most excruciatingly debilitating, dehumanizing, exploitive and torturous experience I could’ve ever imagined finding myself in. While I had to sit and watched my dog who was the only thing I ever cared for take the beating for it.
When I asked the CEO and General Manager for TVEH Kim Todd, to address my dog’s injuries, the threatening calls made to me, the lies her staff told, along with the financial exploitation her hospital engaged in, Todd refused to discuss my complaints.
When I showed her the images of the tube full of blood taken inside the hospital, she told me to stop sending pictures. Todd told me I was disturbing her staff with these photos.
She said she was going to send the remainder of my bill to collections and then told me to go away.
Meanwhile, according to Dr. Floras Todd was the one making aggressive financial demands while my dog was inside this hospital while her staff refused to cooperate when I asked them to release my dog.
My dog was coma induced against my consent, forced to suffocate inside this hospital sustained life-threatening injuries caused by a treatment I never consented to, and one I objected to and Todd said she was only interested in making sure the hospital got paid.
Imagine if this happens to your animal. From the exact treatment you told the hospital not to use, they used it without any medical justification, other than the fact that they drugged your dog into a coma with the same drugs you told them not to use. And they placed this device in your animal and kept him dependent on it so they can try to extort money off of you.
Then the staff who did this repeatedly drugged and violently assaulted your dog when you said you wanted to take your dog home.
This hospital subjected a dog I’ve had and loved for 11 1/2 years to a sadistic torturous game to make money. And my dog paid with his life because of it.
The doctors at TVEH made it clear that your pet doesn’t even need to have a breathing problem for them to intubate your animal. Can you imagine? My dog wasn’t in respiratory distress when the tube was put in. That apparently doesn’t need to be the reason for a hostage takeover like this to happen.
Given the complications that come from intubation and all the drugs involved you’d think they would exercise some discretion about who needs it and at the very least explain the risk and medications involved.
That doesn’t matter when it comes to TVEH and VCA. Neither does consent.
Even though it was their drugs that would keep him from coming off the tube and going home.
Each time I told Dr. Floras I wanted to take Buddy home she would always say,
“You can try take him home if you want….. But as I say, I worry that if we remove that tube in about 10 to 15 minutes he’s going to obstruct”
She wasn’t worried. She was making sure of it. She had anesthesia coming down the drip that would cause him to “obstruct” and stop his breathing within 10 to 15 minutes on purpose to make it look like Buddy had end-stage La Par.
This wasn’t La Par. This was a scam.
Buddy was forced to suffer, and the hospital had him intentionally suffocate in front of me and even debilitated him to gouge money off of me.
I did not consent to this.
But Dr. Catalano who orchestrated this scam from the start doesn’t believe in consent. I don’t believe anyone inside this hospital does. He gets around it. Like most people in this hospital do.
I would soon find out that Dr. Catalano had another harassment complaint made against him around the same time for his verbally abusive conduct inside this facility towards another female who refused to give Dr. Catalano what he wanted. I wonder if he claims by objecting to what he asked for, she was “asking for it,” like he did with me.
I suspect my dog and I are not alone.
I want people to know if you bring your animal inside this place, you should be prepared for these type of tactics. Be prepared for the lies and the threats. The cover-up and the abuse. To you and your pet.
Buddy laying on the grass in the park I walked him to every morning.
The guilt I now live with for bringing my handsome, loving, gentle, docile and forever loyal golden retriever inside this hospital, who looked at me in fear as he was taken in, while I believed it was the right decision when it actually turned out to be the biggest act of betrayal against him that cost him his life, will paralyze me for the rest of mine.
Three months have passed and every time I have flashbacks of what happened to Buddy inside this hospital, I start suffocating.
All of this blatant animal abuse was done to stage my dog’s medical condition and keep my dog from leaving unless they received more money for something my dog never needed.
They won’t let your dog leave if you don’t cooperate. This is how they do business.
In 2018, Natasha Goodman’s family was forced to surrender their four-month dog to a VCA Emergency Clinic in Vaughn, for a surgery they couldn’t afford.
https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/family-surrenders-4-month-old-dog-after-vet-said-pup-needed-8-000-surgery-1.3817145
Goodman told CTV, ” It’s like I’m stuck in a little nightmare,”
Hell wouldn’t be enough to describe it.
Good luck trying to get your pet out of this hospital or any VCA hospital once they have a hold of them. I’ll assume most people whose pets are in “ICU” can’t or don’t get that second opinion to make sure this hospital isn’t lying or hasn’t “misdiagnosed” their pet’s condition.
I had TVEH send reports to my family vet while Buddy was still inside the hospital to have my family vet make sense of what was happening to my dog.
The reports TVEH sent back to Buddy’s vet would indicate that Buddy barely received any sedatives the entire five days he was there.
The hospital reported that Buddy was in a self-induced coma the entire time, to support their “diagnosis” that Buddy was suffering from a brain injury and that’s why he couldn’t wake up.
I couldn’t get a second opinion while Buddy was inside this hospital even if I wanted on because the reports were saturated with lies and omissions of all the drugs my dog was really on.
Critical Care Update August 25, 2022 alleging that my dog has been intubated without any anesthetic drugs being used on him. Even though he was dosed with Propofol and butorphanol intravenously overnight.
I wanted my dog off of those drugs. I wanted Buddy to know I was next to him and that I wasn’t going to leave him there to die in this hell.
I begged every doctor to stop drugging him. I phoned the hospital staff taking over the evening shift when Dr. Floras went home and asked them to stop drugging Buddy so he could leave. They all ignored me.
Dr. Floras had complete control of the day and evening staff. They were all instructed to sedate Buddy whenever I arrived to keep him from leaving.
One of the treatments for managing dogs with La Par is keeping them out of the heat and using sedative like Gabapentin or Trazadone. Yet, Dr. Floras would only “allow me” to take Buddy home between 1pm to 3pm in August. The period with the hottest hours of the day.
You’d think if she wanted to release Buddy and if she was worried about La Par and heatstroke it would make more sense for my dog to be released at night.
Apparently trying to safely discharge my dog who was susceptible to dying from heatstroke, in the evening, when it was much cooler was too much to ask. But then again Floras wasn’t ever going to allow Buddy to leave the hospital anyway.
I was being forced to pay $1800 a day to keep Buddy in ICU, and Dr. Floras accused me of monopolizing the doctor’s time for trying to take my dog out of the hospital at night when it actually would’ve been the safest time to do so.
The evening staff had him even more drugged.
On August 24th, at around 10 pm an hour after I arrived at the hospital to have Buddy extubated, Dr. Floras left intravenous anesthesia coming down the drip. And Buddy “obstructed” in exactly 10 minutes. Just like she said he would while another doctor was on shift.
That Doctor’s name was Dr. Kim Denroche. Dr. Denroche who I’ve never met before began to lecture me about Buddy being on a breathing tube. She said allowing my dog to remain intubated was unethical.
I wasn’t allowing it. They wouldn’t stop drugging him. I never wanted any of this for my dog. I asked her what drugs my dog was on. She said he’s only been on gabapentin for the last 24 hours which I knew was a lie because Dr. Floras said he was on more drugs that morning. And I could tell that he was.
I took plenty of videos.
I asked Dr. Denroche to give me my dogs medical chart so I can see what drugs he’s been on since he’s been inside the hospital. Dr. Denroche rolled her eyes, grabbed my dog’s treatment sheet and walked out of the room.
Consent does not matter to these people.
She was lying and covering up like the rest of them.
These people do not believe in consent. They do whatever they want. The staff tortured, drugged, starved and assaulted my dog and laughed about it then they had the nerve to tell me they had ethical concerns about my ongoing requests for the hospital to stop what they were doing.
Each time I questioned what was happening to Buddy and the number of drugs they used on him, no matter who was on shift, the entire hospital came at me with Rosemary’s Baby mob-style approach and they would tell me I was wrong.
They said I needed to “trust the doctors” and that Buddy’s brain was the problem for why he wouldn’t wake up. Not the drugs.
If anyone’s brain was the problem, it was theirs.
The medical charts I eventually obtained proved Buddy was heavily drugged the whole time. Daily. The drugs on his chart well exceeded the number and the types of drugs I could ever imagine my 11 1/2-year-old dog to be on.
And the kinds of drugs I would even consent to. The problem wasn’t my dog. It was them.
They didn’t want me to know.
They couldn’t make demands for MRIs and surgeries and hide what they did and what they were doing to my dog if I knew the truth.
I sat there every day, for hours waiting for Buddy to wake up again so I could take him home. So he would know his mom came back for him. Meanwhile, they intentionally kept him from waking up and coming off the tube.
While the staff purposely kept me in the dark about the fact that they were drugging him through the drip.
The technicians and doctors laughed as they stood behind me while I was in tears for five days.
My dog lost his life because nobody inside this hospital cared about my dog or consent. The only thing they cared about was money.
The Senior Regional Operations Director, Julie Dwyer, is in often seen in the media as a spokesperson for VCA. She oversees all the VCA facilities across Ontario. When I asked her to review my experience and address what happened inside this facility, Dwyer said, the doctors didn’t know if Buddy actually had La Par or not. They didn’t know what was wrong with him. But she maintained, “Our doctors didn’t do anything wrong,”.
She said I should’ve done an MRI.
This is how they do business.
November 23, 2022
https://nomorebadvets.wordpress.com/?fbclid=IwAR11XKlBuT22EB1BIkuA_sfNmPXNk21PHW2NlkDJQYvyWoYzLl3BhRzUU-0
