Vet bill £151 for a wee cat !!

Ellie2758

What I dont understand is why some vets are reasonable with prices and some arent. I think an earlier poster mentioned large, out of town, swanky premises and this certainly seems to be relevent as far as our vets are concerned. My friend uses an vet in a rough part of town and they are really reasonable.

btw, Frontline can now be bought online at about half the price the vets charge. Try VetUk and BestPet

RAMBLER

I read a story the other day of a guy who gave his pet part of his pain killing meds. He had previously been prescribed the same tablet by the vet, but the human pill was obviously a fraction of the price.

I have to admit I was suspicious of this, are some pain killing tablets the same for animals and humans?

dougk_2

cheekychappy wrote:

We use Spinney Lodge in Northampton and they are a great vets, the staff team don't often change, so you can have continuity without having to explain things time and time again to a new vet for recuuring issues....

...but ask for Flea and worm treatment and it costs an arm and a leg and you get looked at like you don't care for your animal if you say that you are ok thanks.

Can you buy it online?

Yes

http://www.surreypetsupplies.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Medicines.html

[Deleted User]

I have been very lucky re vets bills for my pets. Had pets for 35 years in all. Dogs, cats, hens, horses and all at the same time. The most I have ever been charged was £180 when I had to have my last dog put to sleep. The call out fee for a horse was only about£60

Country vets give really good value but I think that small -pet vets in some towns do play the rip-off game

For wormers etc try the big farmers places eg west midlands or countrywide they sell the proper wormers

There ought to be a wealth warning when you acquire a pet

phoebe03cat

deanos wrote:

You can get cover for a 16yr old cat ,just checked and did a random quote for 16 year old moggie and its £74 for basic insurance and £124 for the top wack cover

https://www.halifaxpetinsurance.co.uk

Hi, Have looked this up for my cat as it seems very reasonable. Most of the work on my cats though has always been dentistry. Anyone know of a cover for 11 year old plus cats which INCLUDE dentistry. Thanks

Eels100

RAMBLER wrote:

I read a story the other day of a guy who gave his pet part of his pain killing meds. He had previously been prescribed the same tablet by the vet, but the human pill was obviously a fraction of the price.

I have to admit I was suspicious of this, are some pain killing tablets the same for animals and humans?

I will PM this to you, RAMBLER, to make sure, but please do not give human drugs to pets.

For example, giving paracetamol to your cat, even in very small amounts, is frequently fatal. I know of numerous dogs who have suffered kidney failure as a result of being giver things like Nurofen by their owners. On rare occasions it might be acceptable to use a controlled dose of aspirin in dogs but this must only be under direct instruction from your vet.

The above advice is for the safety of your pets, not for the wellbeing of vets' wallets, so please take heed.

fairywishes

I am a Veterinary nurse married to a vet. Some practices are expensive and some are reasonable it all depends where you go and what treatment you have.

The £700 for the dog which was kept in given xrays then put to sleep thats is a horrific price it really is.

Firstly surgery's can be quite expensive due to the cost of running the machines that actually keep your animal sedated and breathing during the surgery plus you have to bare in mind its takes the minimum of 2 staff being one vet and one veterinary nurse who monitors the animal and anaesthetic machine during surgery to ensure your animal does not die on the table while the vet is sterile and unable to do anything in the event the animal has a breathing crisis and the vet has his hands inside the animal. If its a big bone op often there needs to be 2 vets. The cost of running the aneasthetic machine is very expensive with the cost of oxygen, halothane and nitrus which is all continuously running whilst the operation is underway which can be hours. Also the cost of equiptment if a bone op you have surgical plating and screws which we have to buy in and are astronomical also the cost of the disolvable vicral, catgut, disposable scalpal blades, needles syringes, drugs, dressings etc etc could go on. Also drips the drip bags are expensive often give a few the giving sets and if a dog chews through it which they often do you have to keep changing them.
Where as for serious bone op you may very well recieve a bill for £500 - £1200 if you were going private or even to look at the cost of the NHs for a human you would be looking at £200,000 easy i know this as my hubby had to have major surgery plating his arm in two places his leg in two places and also his pelvis the surgeon predicted his costs as being nealy £700,000 for his care.

Believe it or not vets practices after costs outlayed don;t make that much my hubby was looking into buying into the practice he's in at the moment the gross profit after all outlays and wages was only £32,000 this year and he is in a very busy 4 person newly equipped practice where my husband rarely refers anything and is a bit of a hot shot at surgery. And if you have to replace an expensive form of equiptment thats just failed or replace a car which is provided for the vet to use then thats gone.
So you see after all the outlays the surgery does not make that much money at all.

But like i said it depends where you go some london practices are very expensive and also animal hospitals are very expensive but that is because you are dealing with specialists in their field.

Before having kids when i was in practice i was a head nurse hence did all the stock taking so know the prices of all the drugs you would be suprised it really mounts up as for blood tests vets often have to send these away to labs and labs charge between £50 - £70 all we add on is £15 for taking them and equptment used to take them.
11 years ago in our practive a constultation was £14.75 and that was in leicester which was qiote cheep so if in £10 years its gone up to £25 thats actually not that bad think about it the vet is giving a medical diagnosis if you were to go to a private clinic for yourself for the same consultation it would cost you over £100.

My advise get pet insurance or don't have pets

fairywishes

Your dot on, my hubby's job has nearly broken up our marriage i am a veterinary nurse so know what the job entails so should know better and understand the hours but the hours are crippling us we worked out for the hours he does he gets payed 72p an hour its just plain stupid.
He is 14 years qualified and on a wage of £40,000 my sisters boyfriend is a 22 year old manager of Aldi with no formal qualifications and gets £42,000 and does of a job and far less hours :0(

He works 8.30 till 7pm at least, does 2 nights on call a week on a good week it can be more if other vets are off which means on a good week he not only does his full working week but does 2x24 hours shifts solid and if he has been up all night the night before he has to then start work still on no sleep at 8.30am and do a whole day having been up all night.

He does 1 in 4 weekends on call ( on a good week can increase if vets off ) and 2 in 4 sat mornings extra as well as his working weekends and week days on call.

This last few weeks other vets in the practice have been off so he has done 3 nights on duty this week and done 3 weekends full on call this month. so he has only had one weekend off this month as well as his full working week and week days on call.

We don't have have a family life as he is always at work or answering the phone from people calling about stupid things as you stated like their cat is in season or there dog has been vommiting for 3 days and they then phone you at 3am.

We have a son and daughter and certainly won't be encouraging him to be a vet i don't recommend it to anyone become a dentist better hours better pay.

On top of that the jobs horrifically hazardous when doing large animal he was nearly killed in an accident whilst being a vet.

So when i see people complaining about vet bills of £151 i feel like slapping them. :0(

fairywishes

catkins wrote:

It's interesting to note the comments about how long vets train for (can't disagree with that) and the costs of their premises, nurses, equipment etc BUT vets in other countries have the same training, also have to pay for nurses, equipment etc so why are they so much cheaper.

I dread to think what a vet in this country would have charged for my dog's broken toe

Yes but we don't live in a different coutry the cost of veterinary school is different countries is different, the cost of buildings is different far cheeper which is why we all rush off there to buy holiday homes as its so cheep, the costs of lifestyle in different countries is diffrent how can you compare.
We live in this country, pay tax in this country, pay for buildings, drugs, equiptment, fuel, staff etc etc in this country hence the cost will be different.

Thats why so many people in Europe come to work in the UK as the wages are higher hence its the overheads a practice has to cover.

I'm sure if my hubby opened a practice in france it would be far cheeper but thats because the cost of living and lifestyle over there is far cheeper.

Plus ask any vet/vet nurse in the UK working in a practice you dread it when you get locum vets from different countries as to be honest they are uselss they simply in most cases are not as good and have not received as good an education.

You just can't compare the two.

chipmunk

singlehouseholder wrote:

The receptionist at the verts was a bit of a moo, she tried to imply that the drugs I was buying on-line could be substandard( with a packed waiting room I might add.) I was really angry that she was suggesting i'd give my dog dud med's!!

That makes me laugh - where do you suppose the vets obtain the drugs they sell to their customers?

My puss collapsed one day and we took her to the vet. They did an x-ray and saw a mass in her chest cavity. She was referred to a veterinary hospital in Derby where they could do a scan and it turned out that there was a large tumour surrounding her heart and compressing her lungs. The prognosis was very poor but they said they could operate and possibly remove the tumour and hopefully she would have about another six months. However, this would obviously be very costly. After much soul-searching we decided that we had to give her a chance and to us, she was worth the cost. The bill, which included her week-long stay in hospital and oxygen at £100/litre (:eek:) came to just over £1,100.00. The staff at the hospital were absolutely fantastic and we can't thank them enough because we still have Suki 3 years on and it was worth every penny !

However, she's on a daily dose of steroids for the rest of her life and until recently I was getting these from my local vet at a cost of £6.95 for 1 month's supply (30 tablets). The last time, I got a scrip from the vet (which they are not allowed to charge for any more) and bought them from BestPet online - I paid £7.49 for 6 month's worth including delivery !!

By my reckoning, that's one hell of a profit the surgery was making !