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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be absolutely fuming

111 replies

wishuponastar30 · 01/02/2011 17:21

At the amount of money vets charge?!

My beautiful cat has a horrific tail injury that needs amputation tomorrow :(

It happened on Sunday and because vets don't work sunday this falls in 'emergency'.

£100 to come out WITH NO TREATMENT
Where the hell are they driving from?!
New York?!! Angry

The operation will cost £200 plus £68 for pain relief and antiobiotic.

Plus £13 for the vet to collect her from home as we can't wrestle her into a carrier.

I am so cross about this!

The fees are extornate.
There must be an awful lot of people who simply can't pay the ludicrous fees they charge?!

OP posts:
LuluLozenge · 01/02/2011 18:06

so you assumed that because no one else you know has ever had a sick cat, yours would never get sick? Sorry to hear about your cat, but that's unreasonable. Animals get sick - fact of life.

Original poster
wishuponastar30 · 01/02/2011 18:06

I am willing to take in information.

But I do not believe the fees are fair.
Seems to miraculously increase every year.

OP posts:
Merlotmonster · 01/02/2011 18:06

you wanna try Horse vet bills... learnt an important lesson many years ago when had horse and no insurance....had to pay £1000's not hundreds.... was like a slave to that bill for a couple of years...(luckily the vet took pity and let me pay monthly) Since then have claimed over £20,000 in the last ten years for various horse incidents (they are very accident prone!! ) - always really respected the vets and their hard work- and also got my moneys worth out of the insurers ....

Can see why it is a shock though....its not nice .

amothersplaceisinthewrong · 01/02/2011 18:07

There is no NHS for animals - this IS the cost of private medicine. The fees are not ludicrous - vets train for longer than doctors. I have paid £100 call out to a plumber in the past. These people have to live.

Having a pet is a lifestyle choice, which needs paying for.

Original poster
wishuponastar30 · 01/02/2011 18:07

My cat isn't sick!!!!!

Her tail got sliced in two.
She's not ill.
Could have read the post.

OP posts:
GetOrfMoiLand · 01/02/2011 18:07

I don't know why vets are seen as having to be philanthropic - they have to earn money and presumably after studying all that time they deserve a good salary.

That said, I can understand how upsetting it is to have an injured animal, and having horrible money worries re the bill. I sympathise with that totally.

But calling vets bandits is wrong.

OhForBoonessSake · 01/02/2011 18:07

"Seems to miraculously increase every year"

ever heard of inflation my dear? everything increases every year! Hmm

Needanewname · 01/02/2011 18:09

wishuponastar30 Tue 01-Feb-11 18:06:55
I am willing to take in information.

But I do not believe the fees are fair.
Seems to miraculously increase every year.

Again I ask - are you really that naive?!!!

FortunateHamster · 01/02/2011 18:09

YABU

I know you are upset and the fees were a shock but vets train for years to qualify (and it's very competitive to get into) but it's really best as a pet-owner to make sure you are aware of just how much vets can cost.

Just because you know some cats that never needed treatment doesn't mean that's the case the majority of the time. I've never owned a cat/dog yet am fully aware that if they have an injury it can be very expensive to treat and that plenty of pets sadly get injured every day.

Vets are not ripping people off. They (most of them) love animals and work to heal them. Of course they also need to earn a wage and it's not cheap to run a practice.

Get some insurance. Cat/dog bills can run to thousands. If you really don't want to do that, put money aside for possible treatments and if you never need it at least you have some saved up.

I have a hamster and it's hard to insure them/not very cost effective, so instead I just keep in the back of my mind that the money I put away each month for general emergencies may also have to cover vets.

emsyj · 01/02/2011 18:09

You cannot know if the fees are fair. You would have to know all the vet's financial details to determine that.

It's one thing to be shocked at the cost and fed up at having to pay it - that's fair enough. But branding all vets 'bandits' is ridiculous.

GetOrfMoiLand · 01/02/2011 18:11

I suppose vets fees alter across the country due to supply and demand as in any other commodity.

We are just so used to free healthcare in this country that the actual cost of it is not acknowledged.

We are very lucky.

catski · 01/02/2011 18:12

Do you know how long and hard vets work to become trained? YABU.

pinkhebe · 01/02/2011 18:12

It costs me £6/ month for insurance for our kitten, money well spent when he ate something he shouldn't have. I don't understand why you didn't think insurance was a good idea?

SoupDragon · 01/02/2011 18:13

I am literally LOLing at being aghast at the fees increasing every year.

HecateQueenOfWitches · 01/02/2011 18:14

yup. It's a bugger. That's why pet owners should factor in possible (ie a few thousand over the lifetime of the pet) vet costs when deciding whether or not they can afford to have a pet.

Anything can happen to a pet cat. We can't predict what that might be - leukemia, getting run over, getting savaged by a dog, thyroid problems (I recently found out are very common in elderly cats)... anything. If someone gets a pet relying on them never getting ill / having an accident, then they are making an error of judgement.

It's a bitch that it's so expensive, but that's the reality of it. It's part and parcel of pet ownership.

But you know, it doesn't matter at this point what you should have done, what people feel you ought to have had in place. You can't go back in time and start an emergency fund, or sign up to pet insurance, you are now in a situation where your pet needs treatment and you have to find the money. Can you come to some sort of payment plan arrangement with the vet?

trixie123 · 01/02/2011 18:22

I owned two cats for about two years. In that time, one of them got a horrible injury where he somehow impaled himself on something and required a lot of surgery, there was more than one fight that required stitches, a couple of infections and the extra fluffy one used to have his rear shaved or it got really messy. We had insurance thank God but to say these things aren't predictable is nuts. cats roam all over the place and its highly likely they will get hurt and need treatment. As others have said, the charges cover very high overheads + a reasonable remuneration for the long and complex training a vet requires. The high fees for what seems very simple and quick treatment have to take all this into account. I am sorry your cat is injured but it is a risk you freely chose to take when you got the cat.

slightlymad72 · 01/02/2011 18:23

I have a menagerie, my latest acquisition is an Owl, it wasn't something I went into lightly, they are not 'pets' in the sense of being cute and cuddly (even though she is) they are aggressive shits particularly the species I have. The pros and cons of having her where weighed up and the potential costs of vet bills was taken into account. If she has any ailments/injuries then I have to visit a specialist avian vet, not cheap, but then that is a financial cost that I have to bare.
Their fees are not a rip off and they certainly aren't bandits. (try to compare it to the price you pay for private dental care)

You take on animals knowing that there are potential high costs in keeping them. If you can't afford to lay out a large sum, you take out insurance. If you are not prepared to shoulder the financial burden then don't keep them.
There are organisations available to help with costs but they are for those that are on benefits or low incomes.

Prices do go up on vet bills, but they do on everything else as well, I remember when I could get 5lb of spuds for 25p now they cost over a £1, its called inflation.

catsmother · 01/02/2011 18:24

The idea vets are bandits is ridiculous. My cat was run over - on a Sunday evening - and left for dead in an extremely distressing state. My own vet - part of a chain - expected us to drive 40 minutes with a severely injured animal to a different branch that held emergency clinics, but thankfully we found another local-ish vet just 15 minutes away who agreed to see us at their surgery. The guy was fantastically professional and compassionate - with me in meltdown .... and though she had to be put down I couldn't fault his care and attention. When we asked how much we owed he said that in "situations like these" it was their policy to only charge the cremation fees, which were obviously outside their control - but there was no call out and no charge for the euthanasia. Furthermore he would send me a bill. To say I was gobsmacked was an understatement but needless to say he was thanked profusely and I've been recommending that practice to others whenever I can.

kittybuttoon · 01/02/2011 18:25

I would recommend registering uninsured pets with at least two vets, and getting a quote from each one before treatment commences.

Registration and initial check-up are quite often free.

Then, you can tell quite easily which are the rip-off practices in your area.

Also some vets do quite a mark-up on drugs, so it is worth checking prices with another practice.

Sometimes, it is perfectly safe to (and very much cheaper) give pets over-the-counter human medication (for example, piriton for doggy allergies, rather than expensive vet-prescribed pills - but obviously do your research carefully)

(No offence to any vets out there - but sometimes the difference in quotes for the same service are absolutely gobsmacking)

ApocalypseCheeseToastie · 01/02/2011 18:25

We had a rabbit with iffy growing teeth and had to have them clipped every 6 weeks, 40 bloody quid each time it cost, 20 'consultation fee' and 20 for the two second 'treatment'

Bloody rip off

Needanewname · 01/02/2011 18:28

Could you do it ACT? Is your vats a charity, no they're a business and they have overheads.

You and the OP need to get a grip

pjmama · 01/02/2011 18:33

If you choose to have a pet, it costs money. Vets are like anybody else out there working hard trying to earn a living, with staff to pay, materials to provide and overheads constanty rising. If you don't like the costs involved, don't get an pet. And who are you to decide they're charging too much just because you don't want to pay it? Would you do your job for half the money because somebody else thinks you should?

ApocalypseCheeseToastie · 01/02/2011 18:41

what overheads ??

For nipping two sets £40 is greedy, and the new vets we found who did the full treatment for a fiver obviously thought the same !

OhForBoonessSake · 01/02/2011 18:42

the new vets may have far less rent to pay, a cheaper supplier, lower energy bills.

ThePosieParker · 01/02/2011 18:43

Whilst I appreciate that the OP is rather upset and many posters are pissed off with her views on Vets, the fact remains that Vets are expensive.

Maybe they need to be expensive, perhaps they have huge overheads, training, etc they are in one of the few animal related professions that make people wealthy. I've never met a poor vet, but then I grew up the country and many of them were farmers Vets. Your local zoologist at Bristol zoo are pretty well trained but they're on crappy wages, comparatively.