In response to mounting calls for 24/7 emergency veterinary services in the South Okanagan, local veterinarians say a staffing shortage and work-related burnout are partially to blame.
A group of concerned citizens, called the South Okanagan After Hours Pet Care, are advocating for a solution to the gap in services available on evenings and weekends.
Representative Keith Boswell presented to the Penticton mayor and council on Tuesday.
He said pet owners are forced to travel one hour to the Fairfield Animal Hospital in Kelowna, B.C., if their pet is suffering a medical emergency after hours.
The animals, such as dogs or cats, may be suffering and in agony until they can be assessed and treated by a medical professional.
“What our group did not want to do is tell them how to do it. We want to identify the need and leave it for them to come up with the how,” Boswell told Global News.
Penticton resident Trina Murray is also lobbying local veterinarians to participate in a rotational on-call after-hours service for emergency animal care.
She was forced to brave icy Highway 97 at 3 a.m. last month to get her 2.5-year-old cat, Maxwell, the help he needed. The cat was later euthanized.
“It affected me greatly because I have been pushing, I am taking my own time and energy to try to get the public to talk to their veterinarians, I have been pushing the veterinarians to do more,” she said.
Some local veterinarians responded to her inquiries over email and offered insight into the problem while also recognizing a need for urgent and emergency vet care in the South Okanagan.
Dr. Stephen Ganton of the South Okanagan Animal Care Center said it is extending hours into the evenings, which is a first for Penticton.
He said having one central 24-hour animal hospital in Kelowna reduces confusion and an on-call service may not be feasible as many staff live out of town.
“There are regulations regarding the continuous monitoring of patients, including overnight, and they are the only hospital staffed to provide that care,” Ganton said in an email to Murray.
“In days of old, on-call service was acceptable, but now I would not be comfortable.”
Ganton added that a vet shortage in B.C. is causing burnout and mental health struggles.
“Our profession is struggling due to a lack of manpower. We have made pleas to the government and universities to graduate more DVMs (doctor of veterinary medicine), which has not increased despite the increase in demand of owning pets,” he wrote.
“We also, as a profession, have an enormous mental health issue. Our suicide rate has jumped to 400% of what dentists are.”
A letter signed by the veterinarians at Anderson Veterinary Clinic and the veterinarians at Lindsey Veterinary Hospital was also sent to Murray in response to her concerns.
The group said staff experience stress associated with sick animals and the loss of beloved family members.
“It is no surprise that veterinarians are one of the professions that suffer from the highest rates of compassion fatigue, depression, and suicide,” the group wrote.
The letter also addresses the staffing shortage and notes that requested increased funding to graduate more students at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine (WCVM) has failed to materialize.
There is no vet college in B.C. and WCVM, which is based in Saskatoon is the only college in Canada that accepts B.C. residents for vet school, the group said.
“Because of this shortage, veterinarians are already finding themselves overworked and it is becoming apparent that this shortage will not end soon,” they said.
Penticton-area veterinarians contacted by Global News have not responded to requests for comment.
The College of Veterinarians of British Columbia said there are six accredited clinics in Penticton with approximately 17 veterinarians on staff.
The regulatory body said legislation and professional bylaws do not require that veterinarians provide emergency care.
Vet clinics are private businesses and choose the hours in which they operate, it said.
“The reason that there is no 24-hour care in Penticton is because a practice facility has not seen a need or market to provide that service to remain viable, or have been unable to hire staff to be able to extend their services to include this,” council president Josh Waddington said in an email to Global News.
“Currently there is a significant shortage of veterinarians in BC as in other provinces. Additionally, COVID stay-at-home restrictions have caused a sudden increase in pet-ownership across most of Canada and that has increased the demand for veterinarians at a time when it takes longer to carry out routine services,” Waddington wrote.
“This double whammy as it were for veterinarians has resulted in heavy extended workloads and all the stresses that go along with that. In some areas, veterinarians who need to retire or sell their practices have been unable to and have simply closed the practices placing even higher workloads on the ones remaining.”
Pet owners like Colleen Cole hope a solution can be found to prevent animal suffering.
Her three-year-old Tuxedo cat, Jesse, died after failing to get the urgent care he needed for a urinary tract infection.
Cole didn’t have the means to travel to Kelowna and could not find an available vet in Penticton to treat him.
“By the time I could get him into a vet in Penticton the following morning, he died in surgery,” she said.
“With the senior population that we have, there are a lot of people who can’t get their animals to Kelowna in case of an emergency, and emotionally for people it is very difficult to make that drive, it is not safe.”