I’m writing this letter following a recent, disappointing experience I had when dealing with a veterinary clinic in Attard.
I’m a volunteer who helps stray cats, aided mainly by SAGS and also Happy Paws. I collect injured strays and tend to their injuries, until they’ve fully recovered. I also gather a large number of strays and take them to vets to be neutered, to try to regulate the huge amount that dangerously roams the streets. On some sad occasions, when strays are suffering tremendously and nothing can be done to save them, the vets euthanize them.
Over the past years I’ve dealt with a number of vets whose fees are conscientious when it comes to tending to stray cats. There are also some vets who don’t charge anything at all if a stray needs to be put to sleep. Unfortunately, however, in the recent months, I dealt with a vet clinic in Attard, which ripped me off completely.
It happened after clinic hours, at about 9.00pm, when the usual vets I deal with were closed. I called the Emergency Call Centre (a centre which gives out the number of the vet on call for the night and who charges a fee, added to your landline bill, for their services) who told me that the only vet clinic on call for the night was in Attard.
So I drove there, a dying stray kitten beside me, and was charged an exorbitant €65 for the vet to put it to sleep – a two-minute job. Since I’ve been involved in this for over three years, I knew it was a ridiculously high amount to pay. Neutering a female cat costs around €50 and sometimes the operation turns out to be long and complicated.
To add insult to injury, this vet bundled the dead kitten in the towel I took with me and handed her to me to dispose of myself, after warning me to disinfect my entire house since the kitten was put down because of a viral infection, which he said could be passed on to my other cats.
When a cat is euthanized, the norm is for the vets to secure it in a plastic bag and send it to the incinerator. To have me dispose of this dead kitten – keeping in mind the dangers of the viral infection and my overall distress due to its death – was unprofessional, inhumane and dangerous, to say the least.
Besides being appalled by the vet’s disregard towards both the dead kitten and myself, I feel he took advantage of being the only clinic on call for the night and requesting such an exorbitant amount.
What really gets to me is that a number of the vets who are on call via the Emergency Call Centre, on seeing me approaching with these stray cats tell me that these animals are not under their care and don’t tend to the emergency until they’re finished with their regular clients’ pets. On a different occasion one vet from Best Friends Clinic took an hour until she saw to a cat I brought in. Why is this vet on the emergency call list if she’s going to treat the case with little or no urgency whatsoever?
With so many organisations helping stray cats, and when so many volunteers are giving up their time and money to help these animals out of sheer love, it is such a disappointment to come across vets who abuse of the system heartlessly.
I take the opportunity to thank some vets who have been a pleasure to work with and who have shown incredible kindness towards these strays: Dr Duncan Checuti Ganado, Dr Ilanit Brandon and Dr Quentin Lawson.
I’d also like to add that, even though the Emergency Call Centre comes in handy, it should also be accessible through mobile phones and not limited to landlines, especially since most emergencies happen out on the streets where no landline phones are available.
J. Pullicino
Siggiewi
I felt sad at reading Mr Griscti’s letter last Sunday on the emergency vet service. What an awful experience for your family and your dog. I cannot understand how people are so cold when it comes to animals in Malta. What’s worse, the person was a vet.
Is the animal welfare department going to do something about him? It is traumatic enough that your dog is dying, let alone getting such an attitude. Growing up in the UK, I have always had pets, and I have 15 rescued cats here. When my old Labrador was getting too sick in the UK, the vet said he had to be put to sleep. My lab could still walk, but I made an appointment for the vet to come to my parents’ house so that the dog could end its life where he had lived, with us.
The vet came, put him to sleep, and then left us for as long as we wanted to grieve. The vet than took him and cremate him. That’s another service denied us in Malta.
You can keep the ashes or not, but at least your pet is cremated on its own and leaves us with the respect all animals deserve. This is just another thing that separates a country that cares for all life, and a country that does not. I just hope the animal hospital has a pet cremation service when it is eventually built, but this government’s record of animal welfare is not very good. I hope you eventually get a new pet. Nothing will replace your loss.
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