Vets who value their collected money for treatment MORE than saving the Cat's life

by Mary
(Virginia, USA)

I have worked with Cat rescue many years and had many cats in my life and have been blessed to have several EXCELLENT VETS who put the wellness of their animal patients BEFORE the collection of funds to treat them in emergencies.

Dont get me wrong, I know Vets NEED to collect their fees to operate their hospitals, and I know some people take advantage of this and sometimes do not pay, which has caused many Vets to NOT take in a patient without their fees up front.
But my question is this:
What about the occasional EMERCENCY that comes on without warning and your payday is a few days away?
Is our pets expected to HANG ONTO LIFE and NOT DIE while waiting for our paycheck to arrive?
Sometimes the emergency is of a timely nature and you cannot wait or the animal will surely die.
Shouldn’t VETS look at the fact that saving the life of the animal comes FIRST in this situation?
Should they be considered passionate if they turn away a pet who will die within hours without immediate treatment if the owner cannot pay for two days or maybe one week?
I had such an experience this past week that I'd like to share.

I recently moved to Virginia from North Carolina which hit me for ALL my savings. I was awaiting my paycheck which was coming this past Friday (yesterday). All of a sudden Wednesday night (two days prior to getting paid) our cat Timmy Toes fell VERY ILL.
Here is the story:

Just last week, all was well here at our home with all the kittys. Wednesday night, my daughter was filling water bowls and said that our POLYDACTAL (extra toes cat) was not himself. True enough, he wasn’t perky and playful as usual. He was laying around and when you call to him he would not even look at you. We tried coaxing him with yummy can food and tuna water but nothing drew his attention. When we picked him up and urged him to walk he would just lay down.
We called every LOCAL vet around (we just moved to Virginia and had not located a regular vet here locally) but NO ONE would take him without ALL the money up front!!! (Our move cost us over 2000.00 USA funds so we was pretty tapped out.

We became very stressed feeling we was going to lose our Timmy Toes because all the local vets was only interested in getting their money up front NOT IN SAVING THE CATS LIFE!

Finally it became obvious Timmy Toes was BLOCKED (urinary crystals). He could not urinate although he tried without success. I KNEW this was a fatal thing if not attended to ASAP but no Vet would assist us. I threatened to call newspapers and report them and had my choice words with them all but most just hung up on me.

We finally decided instead of letting Timmy die a horrible , painful death, we would have to have him put down (even though he is only 3 years old). We were devastated and heartbroken to feel this was our only option to get him out of pain.
Bad thing was most of these Vets and even the Humane Society wanted over 150.00 to JUST EUTHANIZE HIM! UN-HEARD OF!!
Most of them quoted me a sum of 3,000 USA dollars to treat him.

Finally I called a Vet who is 40 miles away and expressed my dilemma and by this time I was crying non stop. This Vet was SO COMPASSIONATE! She wasnt even
concerned with the money, ONLY that she be allowed to save the cat and we would work out the payment later. WHAT A BLESSING SHE WAS.

We rushed our Timmy Toes to her (40 miles away) and she took him right away and began prompt treatment on him and we was of course right, he was hopelessly blocked which can result in death quickly.
This was Wednesday night.
On Thursday morning, she called very early to tell us she had inserted a catheter and found he had a lot of crystals and grit in his urine and was in very bad shape when he was admitted the night before, but was doing better Thursday morning.
She left the catheter in and hooked him to IV fluids to flush his system and put an E collar on him to keep him from pulling out his catheter.
He was given time released antibiotic injection and keep medicated to keep him from over exerting himself while the medication was working.

On Friday morning we got a call and he was doing GREAT. His urine had flushed out all signs of crystals and the urine was no longer flowing red but clearing up rapidly. He was eating and drinking and walking about.

By Friday afternoon, the vet called and said he could come home and complete his recovery and that he was doing remarkable.

With ALL his emergency care and boarding and medications as well as treatment, we was only charged an un-heard of fee of $235.00 USA dollars! When we picked him up she even offered us a option of paying payments or just a partial payment. Fortunately, we had got paid by this time and was able to pay his bill.
The bottom line was that this WONDERFUL VET put the life of this cat before her own payment policy and saved his life (at an un-heard of low amount) and did a GREAT job of saving him.

All other vets quoted me sums of 1000.00 to 3,000 dollars. And NO ONE would take him and save his life and let us pay on Friday (two days after being admitted) like this wonderful Vet did.

Timmy Toes is now home with us again and doing very well and we have found a Vet who puts her patients FIRST when the need is GREAT. I am so thankful for VETS like her. Although the drive there is almost an hour away, She is WELL WORTH the drive because she has proven that her patients COME FIRST.

What is wrong with these Vets out there who seem to not even care that an animal is suffering or dying? It just seems like this is a poor way to maintain a good relationship with their clients and their patients.

Money is truly the ROOT OF ALL EVIL and sadly, many animals die in the USA because some VETS MUST collect un-heard of amounts up front to save them. This to me is TERRIBLE.
What happens next when our human Doctors do this same thing?
VERY FRIGHTENING to think of.

A GOOD, CARING VET is worth their weight in gold.
When seeking a good Vet , CALL CALL AND CALL some more until you find one who values the life of your pet BEFORE the ALMIGHTY DOLLAR. There are some CARING ones left out there. You have to seek them out.
One word of advice. PET INSURANCE is WELL WORTH the cost.
Look into it and protect your pet because emergencies do not PRE-ANNOUNCE its self usually.

Best wishes to all and their Cats
Mary in VA, USA

Comments for Vets who value their collected money for treatment MORE than saving the Cat's life

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Jul 17, 2016
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A sad reality
by: Harry

I am a researcher and I have looked into this subject very carefully. Sadly the veterinary business has become just that, a business and a business is generally interested in only one thing, profit-making. The Veterinary industry has become a disgusting example of a complete lack of conscience on the part of human beings. They don't care at all about the well-being of a pet, on the contrary they could care less about animals and their suffering! The only thing the vast majority of vets today care about is money plain and simple. People need to be aware of this and find someone who actually gives a damn. Your pet's life will probably depend on it.

Jun 26, 2014
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Unheard Of
by: Anonymous

We had a near situation with our local vet but instead of money being the issue it was time. Our 3 year old male Russian Blue developed urinary obstruction. We didn't know this at first, we only realized he was very ill. I called our local vet who has treated many of our animals, by appointment, and laid to rest 2 pets, by appointment. The day our Diesel fell severely ill I called them on an emergency bases. The told me they could NOT take him in because they were too busy, they were booked. I cried myself to sickness. Final after a few other calls I found a vet in another area who would take him in for treatment.. even though they were extremely busy and also booked. When we got to the offices, the Dr. felt under Diesels belly and took him to surgery right then and there. Dr. Lee saved our oldest babies life that day, he told us if we had waited, Diesel would have died. Needless to say, we switched vets after discovering some people are not that concerned if our pets live or die.

Jun 07, 2014
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Sounds so familar
by: Anonymous

Reading your story reminds me when our dog had kidney failure and after paying for the blood work and physical to get the diagnosis they would do no more for her without all the money so we called and called and finally found the most wonderful caring vet probably 30 miles from us and she saved her life but the additional time it took us finding a vet to work with us I think made it worse as our dog only lived for another year. If she had proper treatment immediately she might had not got as bad. If a vet cares about animals they would NEVER let it die for lack of funds! Sure they deserve to be paid but when someone can clearly show they don't have the money no pet should be allowed to die for the lack of money, period! And if only people had pets that could afford all those expenses there would be many more unloved animals than there is now! Now that we rescued a bird after it almost got ran over and attacked by another bird we can not find a vet that will check her without all the charges. Shame on all those greedy vets and doctors, too, that don't treat people without the money upfront and oh yes there are many of them, too!

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