Dr. Pete Keesling of the San Martin Veterinary Hospital and Dr.
Greg Martinez of the Gilroy Veterinary Hospital responded to my
recent column (12/14) on the difficulties of finding local
emergency veterinarian care after hours.
Dr. Pete Keesling of the San Martin Veterinary Hospital and Dr. Greg Martinez of the Gilroy Veterinary Hospital responded to my recent column (12/14) on the difficulties of finding local emergency veterinarian care after hours. I wrote about how my young calico cat named Twinkle nearly died after swallowing several yards of dental floss.
“Dear Kat, we saw your column and felt that it brought up an important issue. We are glad to hear that your kitty is recovering, and we hope she doesn’t exercise any more unhealthy dietary indiscretion.
“It’s true that there is no after-hours veterinary emergency service in all of South County. Several attempts have been made to open one, but none have been successful.
“Up until a few years ago, local veterinarians offered 24-hour emergency services in their own clinics. Pets that were sick or injured could be taken and treated locally.”
According to Dr. Keesling, many veterinarians built their reputations by “being there” when needed. “Unfortunately,” he says, “We cannot do that any longer for professional and legal reasons.
“To offer 24-hour emergency service, a veterinary clinic has to have someone on the premises available all the time. This would require additional staffing with an entirely different crew of veterinarians, technicians and staff.”
A reader wrote in to say, “Thank you for writing your article about medical care for pets after hours/holidays. Many of us have faced the same problem. I hope many people have written in response to your article, and that something can be done for emergency services. I too have faced emergency needs, and wound up being told I had to call one number, then another, and that was just the start of the nightmare. Not exactly what you need when you have an animal in distress.”
From a legal stand point, vets are no longer able to offer the kind of emergency care available in the past. It used to be that if your pet was injured, you called a vet and one of them met you at a clinic to provide medical care.
“It’s somewhat sad, but true,” Dr. Keesling says. “The old-fashioned country vet has gone the way of so many other traditions.” Now, 24-hour service means someone has to be there all the time, not at home waiting to be paged.
Many readers wrote to say how much they had appreciated the mobile veterinarian who used to serve South Valley.
One reader wrote, “They arrived ASAP, and were wonderful.” I asked Dr. Keesling about it.
“Dr. Laura Simmons was offering mobile emergency service out of Gilroy back in 2002, but has had health problems and her availability is severely limited now. Last I heard, she is only working daytime seeing regular appointments. Too bad, too, because she is a talented veterinarian and had a beautiful mobile clinic.
“I still think that an e-clinic would be a terrific business for some energetic veterinarian, but it takes a special person to work nights.”
Greg van Wassenhove, director of animal control for Santa Clara County, has made several attempts to find veterinarians to open an emergency clinic that would be located at the animal shelter in San Martin. To date, he has been unsuccessful in his search.
“Part of the problem here, we believe, relates to financial viability,” say Dr. Keesling and Dr. Martinez. “Even though the county proposed to build and provide the facilities, no one interested thought that such a business in South County would be financially successful. Costs are high and unfortunately, our profession is also a business and must be managed as such.”
One reader wrote in to express her gratitude for receiving after hours help from a vet that wasn’t even her pet’s regular doctor. “I have been fortunate enough to be able to have emergency service from the Princevalle vets here in town. It was closing time on Valentine’s Day, and my cat had been hit by a car, yet they remained open and did what had to be done with compassion and caring for me, the basketcase owner!
The alternative was to drive to San Jose. Thanks for showing that you care!”
