To think out of hours vets fees are outrageous?!

[sensuallettuce]

Have arrived home from lunch to find cat in pain and passing blood.

Phoned PSDA out of hours line. It's £135 for a consultation BEFORE any treatment. It's normally £30 (so more than 4 times the normal cost!!) Snooty woman on phone informed me if I am on housing or council tax benefit I would be elegible for help but as I am not on any of those I need to pay the fee or not be seen, and the well being of my cat is my responsibility which I agree is true and I can normally afford the £30.

It's the end of the month and I don't have a spare £135 + in the bank so my cat will have to wait until tomorrow.

AIBU to think this inflated "out of hours" price is outrageous?!

My Vet only charged me £60 to put my beloved Tabby down....On Christmas Day.

Bless her. I was expecting a monumental bill.

We ended up with a £700 bill for out of hours vet coupled with hospital bills totalling over £2000. Our gorgeous cat pulled through only to get run over about a month later

£60 is loads! It cost me £90 to have a guinea pig put down as I had to use the out of hours vet, I couldn't leave it to suffer overnight.

I think out of hours fees are ridiculous. The general cost is stupidly steep, as in, just the check ups (£25 for 2 mins and no treatments or anything??). Not operations and the like.

All the vets in my area seem to give the same out of hours number too. The out of hours vet charges about £150. It's horrendous.

I am so glad you have it all sorted sensual. It was cystitis then?

Yes, she seems loads better already :)

You need to get your cats rehomed.

If you are really on such a tight budget that you are unable to meet the costs of their care (at any time) then you cannot afford to have a pet at all.

I'm sure you would rather keep your cats yourself, but objectively speaking, you are being incredibly selfish and causing unnecessary suffering to an animal that is entirely dependent on you.

Shame on you.

Ps. I say this as a pet owner - I would much rather my dog be well and not in pain and living with someone else, rather miserable and suffering with me - it would break my heart, but I would do it in a heartbeat. Not that it would ever come to that, because I made sure he was fully insured for life.

Yonwhale -

£60 is nothing to call a Vet out on Christmas day.

And that's after two telephone consultations in the middle of the day which must have disturbed her own celebrations. The Vet opened up the surgery for us, had to drive in AND brought her son in to help her. I think we got a great, value for money and very compassionate service.

Does that also apply to my children cakemi'myours? Sometimes I struggle to pay for them too.

Must be wonderful to sit in an ivory tower in the land of never having any financial woes .

Must have been horrible to lose a pet on Christmas Day :(

Sensuallettuce

Yes, you should immediately give your children away to a better home if you cannot afford them .

Seriously Cakemi...Are you for real? Sometimes life goes tits up, you know. And you can have all the pet insurance you like but we all know that's not the only (nor major) cost of animals. There are other expenses, ones that even you may one day, cease being able to afford.

It was awful and we will never get over it. He was a very very special pet.

Cakemi - Most people i know with horses would struggle to afford a major operation if their insurance didnt pay out (Which seems to happen quite regularly, I know at least 5 people off the top of my head).

Luckily they have very very good vets who are understanding and happy to take payments in installments.

DH is a vet. Used to own his own practice and now locums and often does stints for Vets Now.

When he ran his practice they had their own out of hours service where it cost about £50 to be seen before 12pm out of hours and £100 after 12pm. Believe it or not, they actually made NO PROFIT whatsoever on their out of hours service. It is incredibly expensive to pay someone to be at work 24 hours a day, all year round.

All the vets I know work incredibly hard for not very much money.

To be fair I can't say I know many poor vets .....

...well I don't know any rich ones!

We drive a 12 year old Volvo and have a holiday in this country about every 6 years and DH has an 'average' salary according to the latest survey.

In fact based on the stupid number of hours he works, I have just calculated he earned £8.56 per hour over the last year.

I used medivet and for a home visit out of hours it was £60. I think they are nationwide and I thought the price was reasonable tbh

Hang on - why is anyone who dares to contradict the OP being told they live in an ivory tower? This is really not the place to post if you can't handle hearing the other side of the story.

I too don't know many rich vets. Veterinary Science has one of the highest suicide rates and is a stressful occupation (with bugger all thanks by the look of it).

Vets could earn a hell of a lot more were they to apply their intellect elsewhere. I think, as another poster says, people are used to having free access to medicine from similarly qualified professionals and forget the cost of this provision.

my last vet hung himself :( he was a poor tormented soul

Am I now responsible for vet suicide as well as being a bad pet owner?

On The last trip with our new stray cat, the initial examination fee was £28. After the exam which took nearly 25 minutes including contacting the microchip Co, advice and education, the dispensing of a Px for cat eye chlamydia and a free two month dose of flea treatment , we were still only charged £28.

I think very highly of my Vets.

Blimey sensual i would put yourself up for rehoming if I were you, before you get blamed for anything else.

I have often struggled to pay my vet bills if that helps? and I know it is the responsibility of having a pet that you have to take them to the vet (and I do) but I remember my old dog, when i had her I worked full time and insurance wasn't as readily available as it is now but I could afford vet bills, fast forward 18 years and we were poor, i was a carer, had a disabled child, other children etc and it did become a strain to pay for vets. i don't think there is anything wrong with saying that. We are in a recession

Yes, the stress rate is high with an attendant higher suicide rate. The same applies in farming, the medical and nursing professions and dentistry.

However an important variable is accessibility to the 'tools' of suicide. These professions have easier access to more reliable and lethal methods. This needs to be acknowledged because there are plenty of professions (and those without jobs) with equally high stress levels where the suicide rates are lower.

I'll get my coat ....