That question has vexed Nancy and Tom Stanley, both nurses, since their cheeky chocolate Lab, Baxter, died in February at the VCA Old Marple Animal Hospital.
"When something unexpected or catastrophic happens in our work, physicians talk to the family," Nancy explains. "Without that, the family is left with an open wound."
But even if a vet doesn't do postmortems, wouldn't common decency suggest alerting billing and marketing to a patient's passing?
Instead, the Stanleys are being hounded for money they can't possibly owe. And they've received crass come-ons in the mail with lounging Labs surrounded by paw prints:
Time flies when you're having fun. Baxter, it's time to schedule your next visit.
Can you imagine such insensitivity from a pediatrician?
Gone in a flash
The Stanleys got Baxter as a puppy in 2002. A lovable "maniac" he remained until February, when Nancy rushed the trembling, vomiting dog from her Springfield, Delaware County, home to the nearest 24-hour animal hospital.
Nancy, who spent 20 years as an ICU/ER nurse, says the vet suspected Baxter had swallowed a toy or sock. But an abdominal X-ray was clear, so he got fluids and went home after the Stanleys paid $645.36.
The couple took the dog back the next morning, and a chest X-ray revealed pneumonia. Baxter, a different vet assured, would be fine after a two-day, $1,507.26 dose of oxygen and antibiotics. As required by the hospital, the Stanleys paid half the bill up front.
"When we left at 3 p.m.," Nancy recalls, "he was on oxygen in a plexiglass cage." At 5:30 p.m., the Stanleys were summoned back with news that Baxter "had taken a turn for the worse." They found him bleeding from the mouth and agreed to have him put down and cremated.
"It was obvious he was dying," Nancy recalls somberly at the family's dining-room table. "His eyes were open, but glazed."
The sound of silence
