Veterinarians in Canada say they are experiencing extreme burnout and plummeting mental health due to staff shortages, a booming number of animal patients and the round-the-clock stress of the job. Ne...
To the people going “everyone is,” I’m thinking you may not know a veterinarian.
We have a rural vet, so she’s mostly a 1-person operation (she has a vet tech). She gets calls at all hours, from people she doesn’t know, who are desperate, rude, or both. She was telling me about a woman who called about her puppy who was struggling to breathe. It was an hour drive away, and from experience she knew she needed to be up front that there was going to be a fee for her coming out. After being told what a shitty person she was, the woman just hung up. So, there was a puppy out there, struggling to breath, and either the vet needed to drive two hours on her weekend to help it, and possibly not get paid, or quite likely this dog dies some slow painful death.
People seem to think they’re entitled to a vet, and when she can’t see someone as soon as they’d like they get angry. When it’s time to pay, people can get angry. There was an accident by our town and the fire department brought in two dogs that were thrown from the car and in bad shape. She had tried to make them as comfortable as possible while trying to contact someone from the family. She ended up doing a bit of work, but when the wife of the driver was finally found she simply refused to pay anything. Said she didn’t ok any of it.
So consider that a vet goes into this profession because they love animals, but day in and out they’re seeing them suffer terribly, and often much more than is necessary because people are ass holes. From beyond our own vet I’ve also heard lots of stories of people just ghosting after they’ve learned how much some treatment will cost, or wanting to put down animals that are just “too old.” Vets sit at this intersection between helpless animals and how society treats animals. Well, and now how people treat people.
My partner is a vet tech and prior to that worked in an animal shelter. She recently left her vet tech position because of the stress, burnout and some toxic behavior by the humans and colleagues. Part of the issue is the cultural and legal perception that an animal is property with the entanglement of the entitlement people have that the “do whatever you can to preserve life” oath extends to doing things for free. Between these two, people think they’re entitled to have veterinary care for their animals, but fail to understand that the care is expensive and when faced with it, their mental thought process quickly switches to assessments about the value of their animal. It’s pretty sad.
Almost need some sort of animal healthcare, funded by pet licenses at like $1000 a year. If you don’t have a pet license your pet can’t get treatment. But when treatment is needed it’s free.
But, that’s already a thing? VCA has a treatment plan you pay into monthly, and animal health insurance exists that’s way more that $1k/year and varies based on stuff like existing conditions and the age of your pet.
I don’t expect the municipalities that collect the $1000 to magically make it stretch further.
To the people going “everyone is,” I’m thinking you may not know a veterinarian.
We have a rural vet, so she’s mostly a 1-person operation (she has a vet tech). She gets calls at all hours, from people she doesn’t know, who are desperate, rude, or both. She was telling me about a woman who called about her puppy who was struggling to breathe. It was an hour drive away, and from experience she knew she needed to be up front that there was going to be a fee for her coming out. After being told what a shitty person she was, the woman just hung up. So, there was a puppy out there, struggling to breath, and either the vet needed to drive two hours on her weekend to help it, and possibly not get paid, or quite likely this dog dies some slow painful death.
People seem to think they’re entitled to a vet, and when she can’t see someone as soon as they’d like they get angry. When it’s time to pay, people can get angry. There was an accident by our town and the fire department brought in two dogs that were thrown from the car and in bad shape. She had tried to make them as comfortable as possible while trying to contact someone from the family. She ended up doing a bit of work, but when the wife of the driver was finally found she simply refused to pay anything. Said she didn’t ok any of it.
So consider that a vet goes into this profession because they love animals, but day in and out they’re seeing them suffer terribly, and often much more than is necessary because people are ass holes. From beyond our own vet I’ve also heard lots of stories of people just ghosting after they’ve learned how much some treatment will cost, or wanting to put down animals that are just “too old.” Vets sit at this intersection between helpless animals and how society treats animals. Well, and now how people treat people.
My partner is a vet tech and prior to that worked in an animal shelter. She recently left her vet tech position because of the stress, burnout and some toxic behavior by the humans and colleagues. Part of the issue is the cultural and legal perception that an animal is property with the entanglement of the entitlement people have that the “do whatever you can to preserve life” oath extends to doing things for free. Between these two, people think they’re entitled to have veterinary care for their animals, but fail to understand that the care is expensive and when faced with it, their mental thought process quickly switches to assessments about the value of their animal. It’s pretty sad.
Almost need some sort of animal healthcare, funded by pet licenses at like $1000 a year. If you don’t have a pet license your pet can’t get treatment. But when treatment is needed it’s free.
So… optional then?
But, that’s already a thing? VCA has a treatment plan you pay into monthly, and animal health insurance exists that’s way more that $1k/year and varies based on stuff like existing conditions and the age of your pet.
I don’t expect the municipalities that collect the $1000 to magically make it stretch further.
This needs to be a thing