Vets

[eariyam]

Just curious about this one.When someone trains as a vet I wonder is it because they care about animal welfare or do they just see pound signs??I have a cat that was hit by a car and left on the road as dead,A very kind lady picked it up and took it to the nearest vets and he was going to put it to sleep as a stray until the lady said she would pay for any teatment he needed(said cat is curled up on my lap as I type and kind lady was reimbursed)My sister has a rescue dog that is now in a lot of pain because he has toothache.Vet won't touch him until she pays £300 up front.I know they say don't get animals unless you can afford them but my sister could afford it at the time she got her dog.Her circumstances have changed drastically and she can no longer afford to pay a lump sum.She offered to pay so much a week which I know she will honour but vet said no!!So my question is.If it is within your power to save a life and ease suffering would you not do so because of money???I cannot understand how vets can in all conscience refuse to help a suffering animal because of money.I know they have a living to make but bloody Hell

[FredPuli43]

I suspected my vet had been overcharging when she offered me £300 off the bill ! Couldn't help wondering how much, with nine dogs, I'd overpaid over the years.

[voulezvous]

IggyB! If your a vet, I'm a Dutchman!
No self respecting vet would have to ask how to get hold of ferrets, as per some of your previous postings! Pull the other one. (which is what you normally do in the jokes section!)

[FredPuli43]

Might add, about drugs, that I found that my vet, whatever else she was doing, was charging no more for drugs than online veterinary pharmacies were charging. Drugs are expensive. Where the costs were run up was in the procedures used.

[Hypognosis]

@voulezvous

At no point in Iggy's writings did I see him/her make any claim of being a vet. He/she appears to take the businessperson's point of view - words to the effect of "we are not a charity" and so forth.

However, they gave the game away by missing the subtext of eariyam's reference to being responsible and neutering her cats. It's supposed to remove all motivation for tomcats to roam (which is how they end up run over) and a real vet should know (and acknowledge) that.

However, as that recent Horizon programme revealed, female cats also roam but seldum much more than 2 or 3 properties away from home turf (in a suburban street, I mean). We don't know if it was a male or female cat but it makes no odds in this case - both would be curious enough to cross the road to investigate a neighbour's garden.

So, it's possible to re-read Iggy's response and instead of seeing it as overlooking the neutering reference, he/she is merely stressing that neutering does not transform your moggy into a house-cat which never crosses the road ever again.

Re: suggestion of an NHS for Dogs?
In a roundabout way, it already exists. We all pay an insurance premium (Tax&NI) and some of us are unfortunate enough to need treatment. The 'claim' part is rendered invisible. I might start a separate thread to see how people would react to virtual NHS billing
The difference with animals is that the 'group insurance' has a smaller number of potential members, to begin with and, at present, only a self-selecting portion of those pay their premiums and get to make claims.

You could just as easily put 5-10 quid a week into a savings account and draw on that when needed with no worries about claim refusal. However, I've met people who do not trust their own self discipline when it comes to splurges with money, so an insurance company is the way to go, for them.

Overall, I do have genuine concerns that pet insurance is precisely what is propping up high prices set by vets but that is as much as I will say here as it inevitably stirs the privatised NHS pot and disrupts the OP's thread. I will save it for a thread of my own.

[EDDIE51]

If there is no PDSA then see if there is an RSPCA clinic near you, again they treat animals at a much lower cost than a commercial vet, you do need to be on a low income but from what you say your sister would qualify.

[EDDIE51]

Yet another possibility is Blue Cross , I have just realised that it is Blue Cross that I take the old lady and her dog to not PDSA.
http://www.bluecross.org.uk/453/what-we-do.html
Again you have to be on a low income , you have to prove your income and you get a certificate that last 6 months, you can get a new certificate if you need more treatment and your circumstances have not changed.

[ladybirder]

EDDIE @ 21.17 yesterday earlyam said her sister has already been turned down for help by the Blue Cross and PDSA. Sorry, I know you're trying to be helpful. Earlyam there are vets who will allow payment by instalments so if I were her I would phone around. Poor dog.

[friedgreentomato]

Get a second opinion, I did and I ended up moving vets because of it.

[viv38]

I think it is really mean of the vet not to allow your sister to pay in instalments. I know the vet I use allows this and I also think £300 is too much for toothache. My vet charged £150 for a friend's dog to have his teeth cleaned and a bad tooth removed. I think if I was your sister, I would look round for a better vet.

[eariyam]

Thank you for all the positive answers.Unfortunately changing the vet is not an option as there are no others around here to go to and secondly I may not have worded my original question properly.My point was to ask how anyone with the ability to save lives(human or animal)could refuse to do so because of the financial consideration.And Iggy,how do you think we were notified of our poor cats accident.The surgery was able to find us through his chip.Not only are you labelling me to be a liar but also the vet who told us that he had never seen an animal so close to death and had never had one survive such horrific injuries .He was going to put him to sleep immediately but the lady who brought him in asked for him to be given a chance and paid money up front.He told us that had he been a stray as was mistakenly thought at first then he would just have put him to sleep.I am sorry if you don't believe me but quite frankly I don't care either.I didn't come on here to be lectured at by someone who wasn't even there and knows nothing about me.

[friedgreentomato]

//My point was to ask how anyone with the ability to save lives(human or animal)could refuse to do so because of the financial consideration//

As harsh as it sounds the vet is running a business and if he let one person pay by instalments he would have to let all of them pay that way.

He will have premises to pay for, staff, supplies etc.

Many moons ago I worked in a vets and seriously considered training to become a vet but Mr Warren said that whilst I would be a wonderful compassionate vet I would also be broke!

[boxtops]

Whilst I sympathise, imagine that the vet is a human dentist. Dentists' fees have to be paid, you wouldn't get treatment yourself if you had to pay. Most vets (in my experience) WOULD be compassionate - I think your sister's vet knows they have a monopoly and can act accordingly, which is bad. Equally (and I'm not suggesting this is the case) we only have half the story - we don't know if there is some issue at this vet's where people have promised to pay and didn't, so they have to be extra strict. How do you know the dog has toothache, btw, if the vet "won't touch him"?

[eariyam]

The dog is having on-going treatment for a variety of thing which need costly medication that she buys from the vets every month. She mentioned that he seemed to be pawing at his face quite a lot and he had a look(£12.50 examination fee) and said he had at least two teeth that were decaying and would need to come out. The price quoted was for general anaesthetic,extractions,scaling,painkillers and because he is quite an old dog,overnight stay to keep an eye on him.