08/13/2021
As many of you may know, the world around us is adapting and trying to create some form of order to the disorder that we are dealing with in the last 18 months. In the past several months, many clinics in the area including East Mountain have faced extreme burnout and doctor shortages. This area simply does not have enough veterinarians and support staff to treat everyone right now.
To put it into perspective, it takes 7-8 years to graduate maybe 40 DVM’s per year, and 2-3 years to graduate a Registered Veterinary Technician. And that's just graduating.
Since 2020 there has been a 30% increase in new pet owners. If we took 30 % of our current clientele, there would be about 5200 new pets in homes. This means there are 5000 new appointments to be made in the last 600 days, on top of our existing clients and the rescues we deal with. In that 30% new pet ownership, 80% do not have a regular vet.
We simply cannot keep up with the demand. Our supply of employees is not able to produce at the speed of demand causing shortages and working understaffed.
This is important because now our Hamilton Regional Emergency Veterinary Clinic has experienced such burnout that they do not have a vet for this weekend and some shifts in the coming weeks. This is the equivalent of our human hospital St. Joe's or Henderson closing, and not taking any patients of any kind whether you are walking in or on a stretcher.
If you have a true emergency you will have to go to one of the following emerges: Burlington Emerge, Brant Norfolk, and Niagara Emergency Clinic.
We understand that the pandemic has brought out a lot of deficiencies in the overall system and unfortunately has also been the excuse for people to behave poorly. We at East Mountain understand people are stressed and have some financial burdens they may not have had years prior. However, the increase in verbal and physical abuse our staff has incurred is unacceptable.
We have stated before, as well as the HREC emergency clinic, if there is any physical contact, swearing, yelling, or spitting you will be asked to leave immediately. We are human- we make some mistakes, yes waiting in the parking lot is not ideal, yes we have to juggle extra cases when other clinics close or are also overburdened, yes we understand from your perspective your pet is the only thing we should be working on.
Times have changed and we are doing our best to accommodate. We are revamping our triage over the phone; certain types of appointments will be waiting a little longer than normal. You will be asked to send in photos of basic skin or ear concerns so we can see whether telemedicine or an actual visit is required. Same in regards to veterinarian phone time. Once our vet has given a diagnosis and a plan, you will receive updates from the support staff. There is simply not enough time for the vet to talk to each patient's owner twice or more a day. We understand this is an adjustment. We are saving our staff for the real reason why we are here- your pets. All the animals in our care have assistants and technicians giving them care and medicine that they need to get better. If that means calls go to voicemail, we’re sorry for the delay, but patient care is always our first concern.
We do appreciate our clients and we want to have the best possible outcomes for all of our patients. We as veterinary professionals did not get into this profession for any reason other than taking care of sick pets. Being kind goes a long way. Working together means getting your pet feeling better faster. We are trying to do our best.
Thank you for your continual support.
