Mom says receptionist glued young son’s eye shut

A mother of a toddler in Canada is speaking out after she said a receptionist with no medical training at a clinic glued her son's eye shut.

Julia Vavatsikos told CBC News she took her 3-year-old son to a private medical clinic on July 1 after her son, Vincenzo, was scratched by the family cat. The clinic, Clinique Médicale Privée Jean-Pierre Savaria et Associes, in Blainville, Quebec, has since changed its name.

Vavatsikos said the only doctor working, Dr. Jean Therrien, who has worked 30 years in the field, called a colleague to help.

"I thought because it was Canada Day that maybe the clinic was short-staffed, and that [the colleague] was either a nurse or medical student," she said. "The doctor was holding my son and kind of holding his eye and then the co-worker applied glue. He kind of missed and he glued my son's eye shut."

CBC News confirmed the co-worker was a part-time receptionist without medical training, not a doctor or nurse.

Vavatsikos took her son to an emergency room where she was informed the type of glue used would rarely be used near an eye, and if it was, a specialist would do it. A specialist had to cut the boy's eyelashes to pry open his eye.

Vavatsikos said she wants to make sure the doctor is held accountable so the same doesn't happen to another child.

Contact Kristen DeSilva at kdesilva@reviewjournal.com.  Find her on Twitter: @kristendesilva