Pet Owners Demand Probe of Low-Cost Clinic

Cats squirmed and growled in pain as they were neutered because they were not properly anesthetized.

The abdominal organs of the Lopez family dog were reportedly pulled out during one unorthodox spaying, and the pet died.

The Chavez’s German shepherd, Spike, appeared to have been strangled by an inept attendant before surgery even began.

These are among the allegations reported by the city’s chief veterinarian concerning a clinic that performed low-cost neutering for the city until it closed its doors May 7 after it was unable to maintain the services of a regular veterinarian. A Los Angeles Animal Services spokesman says the department is investigating Spike’s death, but that the clinic is free to reopen as soon as another vet can be found.

Activists and pet owners showed up at the clinic Monday to demand a wider investigation.

“We’re trying to sound the alarm. We want a thorough outside investigation,” said Jamie Pinn, the executive director of HART/Muttmatchers. “We don’t want people to stop spaying and neutering. We just want it to be a safe, good place.”

Representatives of the Nevada-based nonprofit organization that operates the clinic, as well as two others in Dallas and Las Vegas, denied the allegations and said they were made by disgruntled former staff members and competitors.

“We came to Los Angeles to try to help the animals,” said Stacey Herro, the on-site manager of the Los Angeles clinic and the daughter Richard Herro, chairman of the board of Animal Foundation International.

“We are animal lovers. This whole thing is very distressing.”

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The veterinarian who serviced the clinic for most of the five months it was open, Dr. Tomasz Krzysztofik, was twice cited for negligence, in 1993 and 1994, according to copies of the citations provided by the Board of Examiners in Veterinary Medicine in Sacramento.

Herro said he resigned in April by mutual agreement.

An April 9 report prepared by the city’s chief veterinarian, Dena Mangiamele, recommended that the staff veterinarian be placed on a leave of absence pending an investigation of a litany of allegations by staff--including reports that he used non-sterile materials in surgery.

“She’s bitter because she’s not overseeing that clinic and she’s not qualified to do it,” Richard Herro said.

The report said the veterinarian, whom it did not name, anesthetized three or four cats at once during a visit, but the cats waited for surgery while he talked on the phone. He reportedly left the animals lying on the operating table while he took the calls, the report alleged.

During one such neutering, several cats were not properly outfitted with anesthesia masks, and “as they were being castrated, squirmed and growled due to the pain stimulation,” it alleged.

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On-site manager Herro said anesthetizing “blocks” of cats at once is a routine practice. Krzysztofik did spend a lot of time on the telephone, she said.

As to the allegations of cats twisting and yowling in pain, Herro said, “definitely not. Definitely not. [Krzysztofik] was a very good surgeon, but he wasn’t as personable with the customers as we would have liked him to be.”

One of the customers, a credit card fraud investigator named Miguel Chavez, said he got a phone call from Herro the day his German shepherd mix died at the clinic, saying Spike had succumbed to an allergic reaction to anesthesia. It was his second wedding anniversary, and he had planned a surprise celebration for his wife, Judy.

“I had to tell Judy,” he said. “She broke down. So did I.”

Herro conceded that Spike died after being restrained by a technician, and alleged that the pet had been hard to control. She said the staff involved “didn’t follow our procedure. The crew that was involved with Spike won’t be coming back.”

But Herro said there is no evidence that Spike was strangled.

“The city investigator said it could have been anesthesia,” Herro said. “They told us there was no way to pinpoint who was at fault. Was it the anesthesia? Was it a heart attack? It was very disturbing to all of us.”

The city veterinarian’s report said the findings of the necropsy performed on the dog were “consistent with a strangulation injury. There were no other significant findings to indicate any other cause of death.”

“They took his life and they lied,” said Judy Chavez. “We had imagined him growing up with our kids and playing with them.”

“There’s no question that something was not done properly and that’s why the staff no longer has a job,” Richard Herro said. “The other groups have an agenda. It’s a turf war. If it was a strangulation, and it could have been . . . it probably wasn’t the cause of death.”

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Another customer, Juliet Long, a Hollywood music and club promoter, said she took her cat Fink to be neutered a few weeks ago. They called her a few hours later and said he died of an overdose of anesthesia.

“They offered to sell me another cat,” Long said. “It was creepy.”

The clinic refused to give the animal’s body back to her until they performed some tests, she said.

“Then they never even called me back,” she said. “I lost my little baby. He was healthy and strong and now he’s in a grave.”

The most gruesome account in the city veterinarian’s report involved an account by a technician of a spaying operation Jan. 10. The vet was having trouble isolating the uterus.

“He removed his surgical gloves and with his bare hands pulled all abdominal organs out of the abdominal cavity and placed them outside of the incision site and/or on the surgical table,” it said.

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Esther Mechler, the director of the New York-based Spay/USA, a nonprofit national organization that advocates spaying, said she no longer recommends Animal Foundation International clinics.

“I have been concerned about them, and this event has been a real disappointment,” Mechler said.

Madeline Bernstein, director of the Los Angeles Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, said low-cost spaying clinics often cut costs, but should not imperil the pets.

“That doesn’t mean it needs to be unsafe,” Bernstein said. “With the high number of animals that have died, and some of the controversy, a more extensive look into it is warranted.”