Our Commitment to Quality
Many of our low income residents have no transportation or financial means to spay/neuter their animals. KCAAP's innovative idea of bringing the service to the people has attributed to hundreds of pets in Garland being sterilized that would have otherwise continued to pet overpopulation.
Randy McNair
Garland Animal Services
In 2009 our low-cost spay/neuter program sterilized more than 10,000 animals, including 4,600 free surgeries for needy Texas residents. The Critter Cruiser, our transport van, allowed us to expand our services to reach a population of over 1,000,000 people. Along with servicing Kaufman County our van makes trips to:
- Van Zandt County - two pick ups per month, 40 animals per trip
- City of Garland - one pick up per month, 30 animals per trip
- Ellis County - two pick ups per month, 80 animals per month
- City of Wylie - two pick ups per month 40 animals per trip
- Smith County - three pick ups per month 40 animals per trip
- City of Grand Prarie - two pick ups per month 40 animals per trip
- City of Irving - two pick ups per month 40 animals per trip
- City of Rockwall - one pick ups per month 30 animals per trip
Complication Information
Part of our Commitment to Quality Sterilization services are to log and track any complications that accrue before, during or after surgery procedures performed at KCAAP. We logged the following adverse events in 2009. These reported complications involve patients seen either at KCAAP or an outside veterinary clinic that are reported to us. The totals also include issues that were likely directly caused by or exacerbated by owners not following post – op instructions; ie not wearing e-collar, too much activity, not being kept indoors, etc.
Postoperative complications
(lethargy, vomiting, site/suture reaction, swelling, respiratory, urinary issues, painful)
TOTAL – 187
Serious Complications
(abscesses, rupture of surgical wound, chewed out sutures, excessive bleeding)
TOTAL - 68
Death
(intra-operative anesthetic death) – 12
(preexisting conditions, such as canine heartworm, FeLV, FIV, parvo, rat poison, etc) - 7
TOTAL - 19
Several studies done on elective spay/neuter surgeries at universities and private practices have shown the following rates on routine complications:
Postoperative - 14%
Serious - 4%
Death - 0.1%
KCAAP’s overall logged rates of complications for the 9227 surgeries in 2009 were:
Postoperative - 2%
Serious - 0.7%
Death - 0.2%
KCAAP performed 9227 spay/neuter surgeries in 2009. For many (76%) this is their first time visit to a veterinary clinic. 40% of the surgeries performed were on cats/kittens and 60% on dogs/puppies. 45% of the female cats spayed and 40% of the female dogs spayed were in-heat or pregnant at the time of surgery, a risk that can increase complications during or after surgery, resulting in most private practice clinics refusing to perform surgery. Another interesting static is that 5% of the male dogs and 2% of the male cats neutered at KCAAP were cryptorchid. This means that one or both testicles had not descended at the time of surgery and an additional procedure had to be performed to locate the testicle and remove it. The national average is 1.2% and 1.7% respectively. This can also result in additional complications/risks such as suture reactions, infection, or increased anesthetic risk due to a longer procedure.
Clearly, we understand, since we service a wide population of people not all customers follow up with us regarding routine complications, though we are sure that most do for serious complications and/or death. Since approximately 50% of our customers arrive via our transport services and may seek help from a local veterinarian for minor complications, we may expect our routine complication postoperative to be higher than logged. However, even if it was doubled it is well below the reported averages. However, we also understand for those whose pet’s suffers a complication it can be extremely upsetting and we try to address every issue that is brought to our attention.
We know that our complication rate to be so low because every day is spent evaluating our procedures; before, during and after surgery; to insure the safety of our patients. Our veterinarians perform thousands of surgeries a year, both here and at their personal practices.
If you have any questions at anytime regarding KCAAP’s services or quality, please feel free to contact me. This data is available at any time. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Bonnie Hill
KCAAP, President
Pollari, FL., et al., Postoperative complications of elective surgeries in dogs and cats determined by examing electronic and paper medical records. J Am Vet Med Assoc, 1996. 208 (11): p. 1882-6.
Burrow, RD. Batchelor, and P. Crigg, Complications observed during and after ovariohysterectomy of 142 bitchs at a veterinary teaching hospital. Vet Rec, 2005. 157: p 829-833.
