Help fairly urgent please

Willsnarf1983

My mum has had to use another vet compared to the normal on as he is on holiday and to say they are useless is an understatement.

Basically what it is is that my mum has two guys working for her between 9-12 and as the vet is checking to see if the horses are in foal and whether one has a growing tuma the guy's need to be there at the same time. The question is is that its now 1.20pm and the vet has not turned up after they were specifically told they need to come between 9-12. well now my mum is paying overtime to these two guys who have been kind enough to stay on the extra hour or two. Do we have any legal way of making the vets pay for the overtime or are we just stuffed on it?

Will

Smiley_Mum

I think if it's just a verbal agreement for the vet to come between 9 and 12 noon then you don't have much chance of recompense. If they specifically said that they would be there between 9am and 12 noon and you have witness to what was said then you may have a chance but I'm not certain. A written contract from a vet would be different but as I don't have any animals etc I don't know too much about vets practices etc. Sorry I'm not of much more help than that. Hope things get sorted out.

Willsnarf1983

its what i thought,


they are crap thou these vets!, its not even the same one that came the first time to check bout the tumour so how will this guy know if the tumour has grown

Will

Smiley_Mum

Sorry, I don't know about that. I do hope that everything is ok though when they do eventually get their buns round to see your horse.

Eels100

If the vet is late then that's poor show and they should have phoned to advise you of the situation, but it's not the end of the world. Occasionally in the world of veterinary medicine, emergencies arise, and I imagine as a horse lover you would be pretty upset if your horse was colicking but the vet couldn't come in case he made someone else late?! It might be that the vet had a more urgent call to attend, and unfortunately that usually means routine work has to wait.

As far as the growing tumour goes, the vet will not just be looking to see if it's grown (if it's externally visible surely your mum could tell this for herself?) but whether it is causing problems to surrounding tissues. If he's using ultrasound to look at it then the previous vet will have measured and noted the tumour's size anyway so it wouldn't matter who looked at it.
But I imagine he will be more concerned with the tumour's malignancy and site than the actual physical size.

Willsnarf1983

Eels100 wrote:

If the vet is late then that's poor show and they should have phoned to advise you of the situation, but it's not the end of the world. Occasionally in the world of veterinary medicine, emergencies arise, and I imagine as a horse lover you would be pretty upset if your horse was colicking but the vet couldn't come in case he made someone else late?! It might be that the vet had a more urgent call to attend, and unfortunately that usually means routine work has to wait.

As far as the growing tumour goes, the vet will not just be looking to see if it's grown (if it's externally visible surely your mum could tell this for herself?) but whether it is causing problems to surrounding tissues. If he's using ultrasound to look at it then the previous vet will have measured and noted the tumour's size anyway so it wouldn't matter who looked at it.
But I imagine he will be more concerned with the tumour's malignancy and site than the actual physical size.

To be honest its not even really the vet himself that we have the problem with its there stupid receptionist who after we expressed a request of between 9-12 still went and booked another appointment with another person for 11 and the journey time in itself was an hour....unsurprisingly he was over 2 hours late.

ridiculous and i hope my parents jack them in

thanks for the reply btw, and i get what u mean about the tumour

Will

hjb123

I doubt taht there is anything you can do other than complain or move from the vets. I realise that they should have given you a call and made you aware of a delay but I dont think that you should be entitled to any form of compensation!

fairywishes

I am married to a vet and am a veterinary nurse although i fully understand your annoyance you have to understand all calls are prioritsied according to urgency we do out very best to arrive at a call if a time is requested but obviously in the event a GENUINE!!!! Emergency comes in of course its only normal that that should be attended over a routine visit.

Try to look on it this way how would you feel if one of your horses went down with colic - choke or was seriously injured and needed a vet straight away and the vet said sorry i can't attend your URGENT SERIOUS CALL due to having a NON URGENT routine call pre arranged...

Please think about it!!!

I to have horses and had to foal my own mare one night due to my husband being out on a road traffic accident with a dog involved, (having absolutely no experience in delivering foals ) yes i was frustrated and annoyed especially as he is my husband and i would like to think i came first but i also understood that the poor dogs life was at risk if it was not attended immediatley hence it had to come first.

Most receptionists are actually experienced veterinary nurses who also act as receptionist during surgery's as i did and i know without a shadow of a doubt having worked in many different practices you cannot give a time for routine calls even if ones requested and this is always made clear at the time of the telephone call due to not knowing what is likely to happen on any given day at any given time concerning emergencies so its impossible to book a time for a call all we can advise is that we will put a time preference against the call in the book but cannot guarentee at vet will be able to be there.
Even emergencies unless you have a vet stood right next to you while your on the phone to the client and he has absolutely nothing else to do which is very unlikely hence in that event you can say he will be there in 20 mins but in most cases even in emergencies a time cannot be given, all you can say is i will have one out to you as quickly as possible.

Willsnarf1983

don't get me wrong, i know that my mum is the first to exagerate(sp) at times but i have to say that this women on the phone had an awful attitude and there wasn't an emergancy, she had just booked in this other appointment ahead of us.

It could and should have been done the other way around!!!

Will

fairywishes

But the other call although not an emergency may well have been more urgent all calls are proritised in relation to their ailment regardless of what the receptionist books in she/he has absolutely no control over the order of the call as the vet is in control totally of the order he attends the call in.

So she would have had absolutely no control in which call he went to first.
The vets see what calls are in that day and share them out amongst them they decide which calls they go on.
All calls do not get booked in like a doctors surgery per time they are simply writen in a book much like a diary in a row one after the other and if a time preference is requsted a note is put in brackets next to the call but basically they just get written down one after the other regardless of urgency.
If an Emergency call comes in the vets are immediatly notified but for the most the routine farm or house calls wait until after morning surgery which is about 10am.

Then what happens for routine calls is that the vets all get together and look at the book and decide who is doing the opertating and house/farm calls then the vets who decide to do the house/farm/horse calls then write down in order of how urgent the calls are and they attend them obviously also it also depends on where the calls are if they are close together etc if its routine calls.

You also have to bear in mind and this is a huge gripe of my hubby's when he goes on farm or horse calls he can be booked in just to see 2 cows only to find when he gets there the farmer whips out another 4 cows which he says could do with seeing, this drives my hubby mad as it then prolongs his visit on the farm by often an hour if not more by the time they have caught the cattle and moved them into the crush and then treated them.
He would love just to tell the farmer where to go saying he only booked 2 animals for the visit but unfortunatley once he is on the farm he has a duty of care to the animals hence has to see all of them :0(

I think you will probably find from what you have said the vet would have been delayed and then having recieved agro from the client would prob just have shifted the blame on the receptionist but i can assure you vets once they are in posession of the list of calls decide themselves in the order that they think more important which calls they attend.
I'm laughing at the idea of all 16 vets i ever worked with them taking orders from me a veterinary nurse or even a receptionist... no way would they!!

Even as a veterinary nurse myself with experience and even with years of taking my hubby's calls out of hours directly via the client over the phone we are not in a position where we can possibly be able to know which calls are more important we are not vets thus cannot make that choice just their skivvy's who do their dirty work :0(

Willsnarf1983

mmm well i do understand your frustrations and to be honest our normal vets are also family friends so my mum prob gets top notch service. it was very frustrating but what can you do.

thanks for your reply

Will