New Blog Post

2 years ago

IMPORTANT NOTICE RE: PROVISION OF AFTER HOURS SERVICE

29.9.22

Dear Client,

Green Island Veterinary Clinic takes its ethical obligation to provide an emergency service for clients animal seriously and has done so since the practice was founded in the 1980’s.

Currently there is a critical shortage of Veterinarians in NZ affecting practices nationwide. The main factors are, people leaving the profession due to the inherent stress of the job (especially afterhours work) and lack of comparable renumeration as compared to professionals with a similar level of training. A lack of overseas veterinarians travelling to NZ for their OE is another factor.

As owner of Green Island Vet Clinic, I have done everything in my power to retain good staff and provide the team with good renumeration. This is vitally important as the reality is that clinics are being forced to close around the country as they cannot find staff.

Here in Dunedin, the effects have been evident. Animates/Vetcare have had to shut the veterinary clinic aspect of their business.

Our clinic has currently been sharing after hours with Helensburgh Vet Clinic and Vetent Mosgiel.

We have recently been advised by the other roster of vet clinics in town (Humanimals, St Kilda vets, Mornington Vets, Gardens Vets and St Clair vets) that Veterinary staff shortages are such that they cannot currently provide an afterhours service on Wednesday and Friday nights and have asked if our after hours roster can provide cover for their clients.

We have agreed reluctantly, knowing that there will be extra pressure on our teams, but we know that when an animal is in extremely dire pain or suffering, people need to be able to access a vet.

This means that,

  • We may need to use a triage service that will incur a fee to clients to ensure the vet on duty is only dealing with genuine emergencies. We are currently investigating using a service called Vet chat.
  • There may be a wait after hours to see a vet. If we are on call for essentially all of Dunedin, there may be times when the duty vet is busy with another animal, or you may have to wait for your animal to be seen if a more urgent call comes in. 
  • We may decline to see an animal if we do not think it is a life threatening emergency if the duty vet is helping another animal.

Thank you in advance for your understanding

Scott Drummond

Green Island Vet Clinic