Hoover Road Animal Hospital

On April 15, 2014 I took a normal healthy cat to the Hoover
Road Veterinary clinic for a routine neuter.
The vet. doing the surgery was Dr. Eugene Alexeev, DVM. When I went to retrieve the cat later in the
day I was told that the cat had licked his surgical area and there were a few
drops of blood. Nothing to worry about, I was told. When I got home and attempted to remove the
cat from the carrier I found that the cat, my hand and the carrier were covered
in blood. Upon exam I determined that the cat was bleeding profusely from his
testicular area. I put him back in the
carrier and called the vet. He told me to
bring the cat back in. I replied that,
since it was rush hour, it would take me at least 40 minutes to get there and I
felt that the cat would bleed to death in that period of time so that I would
take him to a vet. by my home. I said that I was just informing them of the
situation. The vet. replied that I should just “put a cold pack on it”!
I immediately called a local vet. (a few blocks away) and
was told to bring him over immediately. They took him right in to surgery. It
was about 5:15 or 5:30 PM. That vet.
(Dr. Witt) called me at 8:30 PM to tell me that he had found the source of the
bleeding, fixed it and the cat was stable. They normally close at 6 PM so the
vet. had stayed there 2 ½ hours over closing to save this cat’s life. That is
really dedication!! He told me that the blood vessel had been “nicked” below
the point of the ligature and was thus freely bleeding out all over. It was a mistake made by the neutering vet. I
realize that it was accidental, but, I feel that all animals should be checked
before being allowed to go home and this could have been fixed immediately.
The cat spent 3 days at that vet.. I was told that his hematocrit
was dropping uncontrollably and that he needed a transfusion to survive. I
called 6 vets. and got prices of $500-1500. I took him the next morning to the
$500 vet., which was Wilson Vet. in Washington, as hour’s drive away. They have an excellent reputation there.
They did the transfusion and kept him for 3 days to monitor him. His hematocrit at 3 days was a little above
normal and holding, so I was able to take him home. Total cost between the 2
vets. was $1200, including one follow-up call for a hematocrit. After 2 more weeks the cat was completely
normal and back to his old loving self.
I sent a letter and copies of my receipts, as well as a
letter from Dr. Witt describing what he had found and what he did to fix it, to
the original vet. I immediately received
a letter back from him saying that since I had signed a surgical waiver, therefore
they were not responsible for anything. It was not a nice letter. It ended with
the statement that I was not allowed to ever come back to their clinic!!! Not
that I wanted to, but what did I do wrong!!!!! The thing that irritated me the
most was that Dr. Alexeev NEVER called me to see how the cat was doing. That is arrogance.
I wrote a letter to the vet. in Toronto who owned the clinic
in Warren and also talked to him on the phone.
He also said they were not responsible, but was much nicer about
it. He said he would talk to Alexeev about
it get back to me, but he never did. I
do not recommend that anyone go to this clinic.
When I first met Dr. Alexeev he bragged about how fast he could do
spays/neuters. Maybe too fast??

They are very kind and treated my dog very well. They are very prompt and accommodating in answering my questions.

They're very kind and sympathetic on the animals. Overall they provided an excellent job.