Veterinary staffer wrote F word expletive in bold marker pen on dying cat’s incubator for all to see

NEWS AND COMMENT – Beckenham, Greater London, UK: This is shocking to me and many others. I’ll start with the picture which tells the entire story, actually. I don’t need to add many words because you can guess what is going on. The problem is I can’t publish the photo on this page as there are adverts and advertisers might not like their ads next to the word F**k*r in a photograph so you can see it by clicking on the link below:

Go to this shocking photo.

Joleigh Anne had rushed down to her local veterinary clinic, Medivet Beckenham, as apparently she had been telephoned by the clinic that her cat companion was dying. He was in an incubator. When she got to the incubator, she was horrified to see that in bold, black marker pen her cat had been described as a F**k*r.

The pen has been used to write treatment notes within the incubator. And it apparently occurred to the staffer to add this F word expletive. In commenting on that, it seems that Joleigh Anne’s dying ginger tabby cat had behaved unacceptably towards the veterinary staffer concerned.

We don’t know the reasons but it is entirely plausible to suggest that he behaved in a difficult way because of the actions of the staff. Certainly, in any case, he was dying and therefore was bound to be irritable if he had any strength to express that irritability.

Joleigh was left distraught. She said that she was in “pieces” and that she feels that the staff “abused him and [did] not treat him correctly”, which entirely plausible as well. Joleigh has warned others to avoid the veterinary clinic. She said that she would take further action although it is unclear what she means.

She posted the picture that I have posted on Facebook and it gathered a lot of comments as you can imagine three of which are published below.

I took it upon myself to write a review of this veterinary clinic on Google Maps accompanying the photograph without many words because the photograph speaks louder than a thousand words. I felt qualified to write that review because this photograph is all over the Internet, the story having been published by Mail Online. People need to know when animal welfare is substandard at a vet.

We don’t have any feedback as far as I can tell from the veterinary clinic concerned but Mail Online has reached out to Medivet Beckenham or perhaps the administrators of this chain of veterinary clinics for a comment.

And that, I think, by the way, is at the root of the problem. This is one of those veterinary clinics that has been bought up by a big corporate enterprise and has become part of a chain of clinics. These, once independent, clinics and are managed by men in gray suits; accountants.

Their primary objective, it seems to me, is to make money which can sometimes subsume the prime objective which should be the welfare of the patients.

And it would appear that a degree of callousness has entered the culture of this clinic which led to somebody, an unknown staffer, writing this highly objectionable word on the incubator in black marker pen.

Or the problem might be due to a rogue employee. Whatever the reason it is clearly shocking as veterinary clinic employees are meant to be sensitive towards their patients.

I think this is a symptom of veterinary clinics being bought up by big business in the UK. Standards drop and prices rise. Not good.

Michael