"Couldn't find a vet that accepts benefit claimants"

Occasionally when you read newspaper accounts of RSPCA prosecutions you'll see that the defendant states that they did seek veterinary help for their animal but couldn't find a vet who would accept people who are on benefits.

People who call our branch helpline sometimes say this and it can occasionally be very difficult to persuade them that they must go to the private vet if their pet is suffering and they are not registered to use the out of hours emergency service attached to our clinic.

Of course the idea that vets are operating some kind of selection process and refusing to add anyone who's not in employment to their client list is nonsense, but I don't think owners who say this are simply making up a story to excuse themselves.

The original conversation with the private vet's reception probably goes something like this:

Animal Owner] My dog's not himself.

Receptionist] Oh dear! Do you want to bring him in today?

Animal Owner] How much will it cost?

Receptionist] £30 for a consultation plus the cost of treatment.

Animal Owner] I'm on benefits; what would I have to pay?

Receptionist] We're a business; we can't give a reduction to people on benefits.

Animal Owner] (puts phone down)

From the point of view of the animal's owner; they would go to a vet if only there was a vet who accepted claimants (by which they mean charging reduced rates). 

From the point of view of the vet surgery; they are not failing in their obligation to provide pain relief even if the owner cannot pay because that's not what they've said. They haven't refused to see the animal; they have simply said there won't be a reduction in price.

Broken hip

In many ways the most problematic cases where owners have no money for treatment are those where an animal's life is not in danger, but he or she is suffering severe pain. A bitch with life-threatening pyometra fairly clearly has to be either treated or put to sleep, but in the case of less obvious conditions there is the risk that an owner may simply leave without the animal getting any useful treatment.

We had an example of this today: a dog who had been lame for some time and treated with pain-killers then referred to our clinic because the owner did not have enough funds for further investigations at the original private vet.

X-rays showed that she not only had a broken hip, but also an older injury to another leg - raising the concern that both legs might break down unless the hip was stabilised by operating.

This would cost £1000+ at most private vets and £300-£500 at our clinic meaning that the owner would be in a difficult situation even with our help. In the event, he said he had no money at all, so we offered to provide pain relief free of charge to give him a few days to think about it and a choice of raising the money to pay or signing the dog over to us for treatment and rehoming.

We can't be in the business of providing completely free operations with no sanctions on the owner or we will simply run out of money and not be able to treat any animals.

Equally, there has to be a safety-net so that dogs like this one don't simply go back home and suffer.

Grim weekend for cats

Sadly several calls from people wanting to know whether we'd found lost cats, and, even worse, asking what to do about dead cats they'd found. One caller wanting advice about breaking in to a property where he suspects his cat has become trapped which I hope our National Control Centre were able to help with.

But, one call did make me very upset and angry. It was from a good samaritan neighbour who was trying to help a mentally handicapped man whose cat had been mauled by a dog. First there was the infuriating fact that, in spite of all our publicity efforts, this gentleman had still not understood that he needed to register ALL his cats with our clinic if they were to be eligible for the out of hours service our veterinary provider offers. This isn't something that I have the ability to treat leniently; our agreement with the vets is that they will see animals who have been registered by attending a normal clinic session at some time over the past two years and I don't have any ability to make exceptions for hardship. Secondly, he'd got no provision at all for paying for treatment; even if I'd been able to get him into the low-cost scheme he couldn't have paid anything. Thirdly, the private vet his helpful neighbour contacted was refusing even to provide euthanasia unless we agreed to cover the cost, plus the consultation fee.

I don't think it's likely that the cat's life could have been saved even if we could have covered the cost of attempting surgery, and I appreciate that vets are in a very difficult position because they would go out of business if all their potential clients could just say they couldn't pay and get things for free. However they do have a professional obligation to relieve suffering and if they demand we pay more than we can raise by fundraising we will go bust and there will be no source of help for vulnerable owners.

It's extremely worrying that so many owners still seem to have no idea that free or cheap veterinary treatment isn't automatically going to be available if something goes wrong (for example, see this thread about access to PDSA treatment on the dogpages discussion forum).

Born to suffer

I'd like to share a few calls to our branch helpline this week which illustrate exactly why the RSPCA's "Born to Suffer" campaign is so important. 

The first, and most disturbing, came on Sunday evening just after 10 pm. The caller had a Rough Collie puppy with acute liver disease. The pup had been given first aid and initial diagnosis by a Blue Cross animal hospital while she was away from home, and she'd been advised to go to our clinic as soon as possible. Sadly the puppy got much worse over the weekend and was in great distress by the time she called us. 

I very much doubt if he would have survived even if he'd been registered and therefore eligible to be seen by the University Vet School right away, but if our own finances hadn't been so dire I would have authorised the cost of having him put to sleep that night rather than by Wood Green the following morning.

There are a whole load of issues here: inbreeding and line breeding of pedigree dogs which increases the likelihood that they will suffer genetic disease; the ethics of commercial veterinary surgeries with no provision for emergency euthanasia to relieve suffering where an owner has no money; the responsibility of pet owners to set aside enough funds for at least minimal treatment and the responsibility of breeders once a puppy has left their ownership.

This is why we so urgently need to raise enough funds to be able to relieve suffering when no-one else will take responsibility.

The second call came today and is less awful because the puppy concerned is receiving treatment and should end up with reasonable quality of life. He's a Shar Pei and the purchaser was horrified to discover that the "weepy" eye which caused her to take him to a vet was in fact ulcerated and will need surgery to treat the deformed eyelids which are causing his eyelashes to rub and damage the eyeball itself. The surgery's likely to cost her £300-£500 and the breeder is flatly refusing to return any of the pup's purchase price to cover part of it.

Why should he have to suffer this discomfort for something that at the end of the day is simply a fad for wrinkled skin?

What a week!

We put out an appeal for help raising the final part of the £10,000 needed to safeguard the future of our animal clinic on Saturday. 

George the three-legged cat is looking for a  home

Thanks to the combined efforts of the Cambridge Evening News and Radio Cambridgeshire and the generosity of the public we've more than met our target, meaning we won't default on the agreed payment deadlines. Especial thanks to John Grieve and the staff of Cambridge Veterinary Group, who donated £3,000.

This doesn't mean our problems are over. We're now in a position to be certain we can pay the flat rate basic fee to keep the clinic open and that we will be able to carry on paying it in the next financial year.

We still have the awful dilemma of what we can do to help animals whose owners can't manage even the subsidised rates our clinic charges and animals who need emergency treatment outside normal hours but are not registered.

Fees for operations are paid direct to the University Vet School, who provide hospitalisation facilities for us. Charges are roughly a third of what the owner would have to pay at a private vet, but this may still represent an awful lot of money for someone who is on benefits of £70-odd pounds a week or already in debt.

Unless we can increase our fundraising really substantially, we dare not offer to provide extra help to cover the cost of operations because we can't justify putting the future of the clinic in doubt.

Our agreement with the Vet School means that registered animals can be seen outside normal working hours in an emergency, but animals who have never been to the clinic can't be seen and the only available treatment is at private vets. At the moment we will help in a real emergency that can't wait, but all we can do is to offer to cover the cost of a consultation — the owner must find the money to pay for first aid to stabilise the animal until they can go to the next clinic session. Again, we simply cannot do more than this, and we may have to say we can only cover part of the cost of a consult if fundraising dips again.

Many pet owners on low income seem terrifyingly unaware of how little help may be available if they can't afford to pay vet fees. Our clinic is the only one of its kind in the whole of Cambridgeshire, and the PDSA's arrangements with some private practices all require the owner to register before their pet becomes ill. Callers to our branch help line almost always say, "Can you tell me where to take him?" expecting that there will be free facilities in every town, and there just isn't. Getting this across to a frantic owner is incredibly stressful for the volunteers who run the helpline. Many vets will do their best to avoid putting down treatable animals, but at the end of the day they have to safeguard their businesses' viability or no-one's pets will get treatment.

I'm afraid no government is going to see pets' healthcare as something they are prepared to fund—if communities want their animal members to have treatment available they are going to have to organise and work to fundraise for it themselves.

This is why our shops are so vital, because the income they bring in is something we can increase by our own efforts. Please support them by using them when you shop for clothes; by donating saleable items and remembering to sign a gift aid form if you pay UK income tax.

We need more volunteers, to increase the rate at which we can process donated items and prepare them for sale, and to enable us to increase the shops' opening hours. If you might be able to help, please email info@rspca-cambridge.org.uk or drop in at one of the shops for a chat with the manager.

Would you be more interested in flexible volunteering?

We realise most people are incredibly busy nowadays, and committing to turn up regularly may be a serious difficulty. 

Obviously our regular volunteers do have to skip sessions sometimes too when they need to fit in vets' appointments, holidays and so on (we're not slave drivers!)

If you think you can probably only manage to volunteer occasionally, there are still lots of useful things you can get involved with.

Shops

We need the regular volunteers to make it possible to stay open at the advertised times, but there are plenty of back-room tasks which can be started or stopped depending on the number of helpers available.

Behind the person at the till there is a busy team who sort, clean, price and shelve. If they can stack up plenty of items all priced and ready on days when many volunteers are available, one helper can keep up with the shelf-filling when we're short-staffed.

Extra helpers on a Sunday, when sales are comparatively slow, can really benefit the following weekdays by making it possible for Monday to open fully stocked and looking good.

RSPCA Week

We normally average over £20 per volunteer per hour for this collection, which comes round at the end of April each year. If you don't have time to do anything else in the year, just two hours volunteering would mean £40 we wouldn't otherwise have.

One-off stalls and events

Individual jumble, car-boot or table-top sales can raise useful amounts, although they need a fair bit of organisation and some way of transporting sales items.

Annual Dog Show

We need a team of people for the basic organisation, but there are plenty of useful things that can be done on the day itself if you don't have time to come to any pre-planning meetings.

If you might be interested, email info@rspca-cambridge.org.uk