A year or so ago my mum, 90, took her cat to the vet. She left an hour later, relieved of nearly £800. Her aged cat it appeared needed tests, a scan and various medicines. My mum lives in a poor area of London and is on a state pension. She has little spare money, but she loves that cat and when a vet says he needs tests, who was she to say no? Most of the other people using that vet are in similar circumstances. I was outraged so rang the HQ of the firm and got through to the medical director who told me he made no apologies for his company offering a ‘Rolls-Royce service’.
I wonder in what world do regular moggies need an annual checkup?
And there we have the problem with vets. Across the country, sole-trader vets have been swallowed up by a number of very big firms. Indeed, when I tried to find a local independent near where I live, I couldn’t find one. There are few industries where there is now such a lack of choice. It is something that the regulator criticised earlier this year. My guess is that many of us breathed a sigh of relief that something might get done about the racket.
But I wonder if many of the reports at the time were barking up the wrong tree. The focus in the press was on the inflated price of medicines for pets. Yes, that’s one thing, but it is a more systematic and sinister problem. I spoke to a vet, recently retired from his own local little vet practice. He told me how sad he was about the state of the profession and the all-out push for upselling and profit. Indeed the word he used was ‘ashamed.’
It is hard to disagree. Expensive medicines are one thing, but why is it that you never leave the vet having spent less than £100? And why do they always seem to push for the maximum number of expensive blood and other tests on animals? And then there is the pet food debacle where your pet is put on very expensive ‘medicinal’ food, often for their lifetime.
Recently my cat saved me a £60 at the vet. He needed to have an injection to extract some urine. As the vet was about to stick the needle in, he relived himself, so they didn’t have to do the procedure. My new vet, by the way, I like and is fair.
It would be a caricature to describe all vets as operating a rip-off service. Most, I am sure are dedicated, love animals and want to see the pets well again. It could be that vets have to practice defensive medicine for fear of litigation. Test everything, however unlikely, so you can’t get sued for negligence.
And yet I can’t forget that phrase ‘Rolls-Royce service’. There is a real problem here. It seems to me that in most cases we don’t need a Roller, we just need a good old average family hatchback. Frankly I think my mum would have settled for a Reliant Robin, as I would.
Recently I got a letter from a vet I no longer use. It appears that my cat is due his annual checkup, for which there is a charge. I wonder in what world do regular moggies need an annual checkup?
I grew up reading and watching the TV series of James Herriot and his exploits on the farms of Yorkshire. The vet was always a bit in debt, trying to get money out of reluctant payers, but nothing as gross as money would stop him getting up at three in the morning and going to deliver a lamb. The vet was my hero. I don’t think he would have charged a 90-year-old woman £800 to look over a cat.
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