My daughter submitted her review, now I will submit mine based on my contact with this "emergency" service. First of all I should mention that my husband was a practicing veterinarian for over 40 yea... Read More
My daughter submitted her review, now I will submit mine based on my contact with this "emergency" service. First of all I should mention that my husband was a practicing veterinarian for over 40 years (retired now) and I was the manager of the animal hospital for over 10 years. I am more than familiar with the operations of animal hospitals and what happens when we were to refer clients to emergency clinics. Never in my entire life have I heard of an emergency clinic turning someone away because "It's Christmas Eve and we don't have any surgeons here." It started out when her cat "Benny" ate a lot of things he shouldn't and he became blocked. We got him into his regular vet ASAP who took an X ray and said he needed surgery. But we'd have to take him to an emergency clinic for the surgery. The vet we normally use wasn't there and this was a "fill in vet". So he couldn't do the surgery. He recommended this one and I called from the waiting room of our vet to let them know we were on our way and to give whatever info they might need before we got there. I have a screen shot of the phone number, time, duration and date of my call. I called. I didn't hallucinate it. I didn't call the wrong number. I was told it was $135.00 for the consult, to bring the X ray, and she needed my daughters name, cats name, breed, age and what exactly the problem was. I explained he was blocked and needed surgery to clear the blockage. She then informed me it was a 2-3 hour wait at that point in time. We immediately headed over. I walked in to find my daughter beside herself because she was being told "There aren't any doctors to do surgery today. It's Christmas Eve." What?????? Oh, and it was our doctors fault for referring us there and he should have called himself. Which she repeated several times. And no one ever called them to say we heading there. That is untrue. I have the proof. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. NEVER have I ever heard of an emergency clinic that wouldn't do surgery because they didn't have a surgeon. First of all, my husband had preformed this type of surgery with me assisting more times than I care to remember. It just takes a knowledgable veterinarian who knows where the organs are to do it. Even if it were in the bowel, which makes it more difficult, a competent, licensed veterinarian should be able to do this without any problems. This was only in his abdomen. It was too big to pass into the bowel. I could not believe we were turned away on Christmas Eve by a so called "emergency" clinic. I can understand if he needed an MRI or a scope. Not every place has that. Yes, I would fully expect in that case to be referred to Penn. But I would certainly expect an emergency clinic to have a licensed veterinarian capable of performing surgeries such as intestinal blockages, urinary blockages, infected uteruses, and other surgeries regularly preformed by your regular veterinarian. This is the most ridiculous and infuriating thing I can remember ever happening regarding an emergency with an animal. And NEVER in all the time we were in business and someone was referred to our emergency clinic after hours or on holidays were we told they were turned away for a surgery. I've heard that surgery was done, but they had to pick their animal up in the morning and transport it to their regular vet because they were only open during hours that veterinarians were closed. That's reasonable. But this? It was a damn good thing he wasn't on deaths door and couldn't wait for surgery as we had to leave and find someplace else to go. All the while stressing an already sick and terrified cat out even more. When I moved to Delaware one of the first things I did was look up emergency clinics in case I needed to take my cats somewhere after hours. I saw the reviews for this one and figured this would be the place I'd take them. After this horrible experience I will be taking my pets to Keystone Veterinary Emergency on West Chester Pike in Haverstown, PA. I'm stunned. Read Less