duckle

Might be masticatory muscle myositis. Worth mentioning anyway..

I work at a 24hour hospital. We are a small hospital and sometimes don't have enough cages to hold all of the stray dogs that are bought to us over say a long weekend. We cater for a large area of a major city, and get dozens of calls over a weekend regarding stray dogs. We only have around 15 cages, which are reserved for hospitalised paitents. We also close during business hours, and the rangers can't/won't pick up from us outside of business hours, so unfortunately we turn stray dogs away. We will scan the dog, and try to find it's owner if we have time, but when we are busy with emergecies, phone calls and in-patients. finding the owner of a stray dog who is not injured is unfortunatly not a priority. During firework season/new years etc, I will often spend half of my shift dealing with found dogs, lost dogs etc, and this means my patients recieve less care because of this. It would be great if we could put an extra staff member on during these times to look after this, but because dealing with stray dogs does not make any money for the clinic, management cannot justify the extra expense. We are also not legally obliged to take in a stray dog under the companion animals act. Most GP vets will do it as a good will gesture however.

"I also realise that getting vets that are prepared to work overnight would be difficult and I presume more expensive but three times the amount seems incredible" I work as an Emergency Nurse. I get paid time and a half from 8pm-midnight and double when working from midnight to 8am. I have to stay awake all night and I am not permitted to sleep even when it is really quiet. I wouldn't do emergency hours if I wasn't paid this way. There has to be some compensation for staying awake all night! I don't however, know how much the emergency vets get paid.

Qualified Vet Nurse of 10+ years. Have worked in general, emergency and specialist practices. Also worked in the UK. Currently a specialist medicine nurse. Diploma of Practice Management. Thinking of doing Diploma of Emergency and Critical Care.

Yes, I believe it did answer the question. I found this on the Australian Veterinary Association website, it may answer the question a little more clearly. "17.3 - Retention of medical records and diagnostic images Policy Medical records and diagnostic images remain the property of the veterinarian or practice, not the client, and must be retained for legal reasons. Clients are entitled to view and obtain copies of records and images. If a copy of the report or image is requested, it should be provided at the client’s expense. If a copy is requested by someone other than the client, such as another veterinarian, the client’s written authority to provide such a copy to that third person should be obtained."

I found the info below on the Veterinary Practioners Board of NSW. It may be different in other states however. Retention of Radiographs and other Records This is an area of constant concern to veterinarians but the Veterinary Practice Regulation 2006 gives veterinarians clear instructions on responsibilities concerning all records. Schedule 2 of the Regulations Veterinary practitioners code of conduct (15) Records. states: “(1) A veterinary practitioner must ensure that a detailed record of any consultation, procedure or treatment is made as soon as it is practicable (2) The record [a] must be legible and in sufficient detail to enable another veterinarian to continue treatment of the animal, and must include the results of any diagnostic test, analysis and treatments. (3) A veterinary practitioner must ensure that all records of any consultation, procedure or treatment are retained for at least 3 years after they are made.” The taking of a series of radiographs of yearling horses is a procedure that clearly falls into this category. Veterinarians must retain, store and archive these radiographs after they have been made available to other veterinarians. This requirement continues after any sale of the horse. The radiographs must be made available to other veterinarians if the consent of the owner at the time at they were taken is given, on request, during the 3 year period of retention. In the code of conduct following (10) Provision of records [detailing provision of records to another veterinarian in the case of second opinion or referral] is (11) Return of records A veterinary practitioner to whom another veterinary practitioner has referred an animal for treatment or a second opinion must return records provided by the referring veterinary practitioner as soon as practicable. Remember the new Regulations are in effect and the 3 year period applies from 1st September 2006. Procedures carried out prior to this date have a retention time of at least 2 years. Veterinarians are encouraged to factor the cost of record retention and archiving into their original fee structure for such procedures if that is seen to be a problem.

I've been out the back of my vet clinic, several times, both during business & after hours. The place is excellent! The costs, affordable! Had numerous dogs desexed here, the pre & post op care has been outstanding. You get what you pay for eh? For the prices some vets quote, I'd expect them to roll out the red carpet. Well thats great that your vet's facilties are excellent and that they manage to offer good service at reasonable prices, but my point was that some practices facilities are not great, and in general you get what you pay for. Of course there are exceptions to the rule.

Here here! Couldn't agree with you more Nekhbet. I'm more than sick of constantly explaining why everything costs so much. We run a well equipped HOSPITAL, with highly trained staff - thats why it costs so much!!!

True, I hadn't thought of the rent factor!

This is not necessarily true. The vet who does my cats is one of the cheapest around (if not THE cheapest). She is also located in an expensive area. However, she genuinely cares about animal welfare so she keeps her prices as low as possible to make it more affordable for everyone. She also runs the Cat Protection Society and is probably the most experienced and compassionate cats vets around. It's good to hear that your Vet is reasonably priced and you are happy with her, and I agree it's not necessarily true in some cases, but in the wider veterinary community, it is the case that you get what you pay for. Although I don't think being located in an expensive area had anything to do with it.

Hi there, It's my first post, so here goes. I've had a read through this whole thread, and all I can say is I agree with those saying "you get what you pay for". People need to be aware of exactly what is included in the price they are quoted. It's been said before, but you must also consider things like which anaesthetic is used, which induction agent, the monitoring equipment used if any at all, even how qualified the nurse is (some "nurses" working at vets are not qualified at all) pain relief (which in my opinion is NOT optional - if you had an operation would you expect pain relief??), which type of suture is used, is the suture dissolvable, how the instruments are sterilised and are they used for more than one patient. Even the general facilities of the hospital need to be considered. Have you ever been invited to view the facilities of your chosen vet hospital. Next time ask to see where the paitents are kept, where the surgery takes place, where they recover etc. You may be shocked at the general facilities and level of cleanliness of some hospitals. If your vet is reluctant to show you the facilites, you must ask yourself why. Staff at Vet Hospitals cannot work for nothing. Clients are demanding more and more from their vets, and in order to deliver the high standard of care I'm sure you all would want for your pets, vets need to be able to charge for it.