The three-year-old’s eyes are ‘untrained receptionist’ in a strict style
A toddler sent to a medical facility to treat a cat scratch on his eyelid was left worse than when he arrived after an ‘untrained receptionist’ create’ accidentally glued his eyelids shut.
Vincenzo ‘Vinnie’ Vavatsikos’s mother, three-year-old Julia, took him to LeBlanc&; Savaria Clinique Médicale Privé (officially known as Clinique Médicale Privé Jean-Pierre Savaria et Associes at the time of the incident) in Quebec, Canada, after the boy suffered a scratch to his eye at the hands of the family cat, CBC reported.
Ms. Vavatsikos said Dr. Jean Therrien was the only doctor working.
He decided the small cut could be sealed with medical glue, but his colleague injected the glue into Vinnie’s eye.
“I thought because it was Canada Day, maybe the clinic was short-staffed, and he [the colleague] was a nurse or a medical student,” Ms. Vavatsikos said.
“The doctor was holding my son and holding his eye and then the colleague applied glue. He missed it and he glued my son’s eyes shut.”
CBC confirmed the colleague was a part-time employee with no medical training working as a clinic receptionist.
“My son yelled, ‘Mom, mom’. He couldn’t open his eyes and the doctor looked like he was panicking,” Ms. Vavatsikos said.
“He was trying to open my son’s eyes with water and his fingers, he was even swearing at the time… At that moment, I knew something was really wrong.”
Vinnie was taken to the emergency room, where an ophthalmologist cut his eyelashes and gently poked his eye to reopen it.
“The first nurse [we saw] couldn’t believe it… She said they try to avoid using glue because things like this can happen… But if they have to do it… it should be a doctor or experts,” Mr. Vavatsikos said.
Dr. Jean Therrien is an experienced physician with more than 30 years in the field, LeBlanc said in a statement. He has no history of misconduct.