Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Veterinarians are Not Charities

I am so tired of people looking for free help for their sick pets or complaining about the high cost of veterinary care for their pets.

Seriously if you cannot afford vet care, do not get a pet.

Vets are not charities. They paid for education, they should get paid for their time and the equipment needed to help your pet. Veterinarians have many expenses you may not be aware of.

Some veterinarians have their own clinics, others work out of a clinic, or are employed by a vet clinic. They have receptionists to pay, anesthesiologists to pay, kennel staff to pay, and want a wage themselves. There is a lot of expensive equipment in a veterinarian clinic, everything from cages, microscopes, x-ray machines and so forth. They have to pay for their building, land, and taxes.

If your pet requires shots they have to use a new needle every time, plus what ever they use on your pet.

Why should you, a pet owner, assume that the vet should do this at, or below, their cost? Why should they be held any different than another professional?

A veterinarian is often on call, their meals could be interrupted at any time. Livestock vets hardly get any sleep during calving, lambing, and foaling, seasons as they are often called at night to attend an animal in distress, shouldn't this be worth more? Their weekends are often broken up with emergency calls and sometimes with calls from people who simply didn't want to call on Friday and decided to wait to see if their pet got better, only to have it get worse after hours.

Nobody forces you to have a pet, and if you do have a pet out of a medical need, that pet, and its medical bills, are tax deductible.

There is no excuse for anyone who gets a puppy or kitten to say they cannot afford veterinary care for that animal and to then complain about the cost. “Why are vets so expensive?” should not even be a thought.

Unless you yourself work in a charity as a volunteer you should not expect others to work for free. Veterinarian care is not cheap, and rarely free, veterinarian's are people who have jobs they deserve to be paid for, so well... deal with it.

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