DO NOT GO!!If you come from a multicultural background, English is not your first language, or if…read moreyou are not familiar with animal healthcare:
Please take a moment to read my experience, and you'll understand why Coquitlam Animal Hospital is a place you must avoid. For three days, I've been searching for a new vet for my cat friend after a traumatic experience at Coquitlam Animal Hospital. I've cried for two nights, unable to sleep because of the doctor's threats and accusations. My cat friend doesn't understand why, after a simple visit to the vet, I seem more hurt than he is.
I took my cat friend for an annual check-up because he had been eating and drinking more and using the litter box more frequently. However, Dr. Nenad Paunovic employed layers of sales tactics. I struggled to escape the financial trap, managing to downgrade the $700 exam plan to $300, but the drastic difference made me unable to trust him entirely.
After a long wait, he informed me that my cat friend had unfortunately been diagnosed with diabetes. However, their overpriced charges for insulin and their hostile reaction to my hesitation made it impossible to accept treatment for my cat friend in such a biased and discriminatory environment. I just wanted to find a graceful way to leave, but they twisted my reasons against me, exploiting my mother's language barrier to judge us harshly in that sealed room. He knew I couldn't argue back, neither in medical terms nor in English. Within his comfort zone, he exploited language traps and threatened me with accusations of animal abuse. I don't know what tragic experiences Dr.Nenad Paunovic had in the past that twisted his sense of right and wrong so severely. He said: "I know you won't pay to treat your cat. If you don't pay, I'll report you to the xxxx" "My time is precious" The implication is that if we don't get treatment here, even if we've paid for the exam, we're still abusing my cat.
***On one side, there's a licensed vet and his silent staff; on the other, there's helpless me and my non-English-speaking mother. In their kingdom, whose side would justice stand on?
***What's even more terrifying: How many others like me, with English as a second language and unfamiliar with animal healthcare, have faced his psychological abuse?
***As an animal doctor, he treats minority groups this way--how does he really treat the animals?
He carried himself with an air of superiority, provoking and attacking me from his comfort zone. Though he seems appeared polite and professional, he was like a blunt needle that pierced my heart. It was clear he had mastered this technique. I'm not familiar in veterinary medicine, I just wanted to do some research. If my cat truly has diabetes, he needs correct and effective long-term treatment and a trustworthy doctor. Yet this vet didn't stop tormenting me after I left his clinic. He deliberately slandered me in the exam report, making it impossible for me to seek help from another hospital with a $340 report that brings only shame.
Aren't they mentally abusing both the cat and me, the cat's friend? The vet, under the guise of "caring for cat," wrote defamatory comments about me in the report notes, causing other hospitals to misunderstand me and trapping me in an endless cycle of clearing my name. The wasted time is also a form of harm to my cat friend. I don't understand why being rational and cautious is considered a crime. Is it because I'm an Asian woman that I'm expected to be a submissive Madame Butterfly? The only person who apologized to me, a female staff member, later sent me a non-replicable report filled with humiliating remarks. When I looked back and saw her last name was the same as the vet's, I laughed with tears in my eyes. It turns out the money wasn't spent on my cat friend --it was spent on myself. I paid for a complete psychological torture package.
By the way, I've been a loyal client at this hospital since 2022, spending nearly $4,000 on my cat friend's exams and dental care. Isn't that ironic?