Demands mount for emergency veterinary service in Chatham-Kent following death of dog
CBC
When Sharron Giles tried to get emergency care for her ailing 10-year-old chihuahua Jenny Penny on Saturday, Oct. 16, she said she couldn't find a single veterinary office in Chatham-Kent that was open that day to take her.
"These offices were open, they should have seen her," said Giles, who lives in Blenheim.
Giles said she couldn't take the dog to her own vet because she was closed Saturdays. She can't remember which offices she talked to, but she said they gave her various reasons not to see her dog, such as: she was not a client, she didn't get the dog vaccinated there and they were over booked. Giles said she was told to take the dog to Windsor.
When she called the Lauzon Veterinary Hospital there was no answer. When she got a hold of the Walker Road Animal Hospital she said she was told to leave the dog and the vet would call her.
Giles' daughter Cheryl Tompkins was about to take the dog to Windsor when Giles managed to get a vet in Petrolia to see Jenny. Tompkins took the dog there but found out Jenny had a tumour and had to be euthanized.
Jenny wouldn't have survived even if she was able to get her seen sooner, she said. Giles is furious the dog had to suffer longer than it had to.
"My problem is this was an emergency. This was unexpected. The vets were open. It doesn't matter if it's night or day and you have an emergency, you can't get through to a vet," said Giles.
Lynn Leveille, who has hundreds of names on a petition calling for 24-hour emergency care in Chatham-Kent, said this is just the latest in a list of heart breaking cases that have occurred over the past year and a half since veterinarians in the municipality stopped offering that service.
"Basically what we're after is to reinstate 24-hour care in Chatham-Kent," said Leveille. "We have a very simple answer as far as we're all concerned. Rotate emergency service."
Vasant Barot is the veterinarian who eventually saw Jenny. He agrees the vets could take turns.
"A group of the small clinics can work on a rotary way," said Barot.
Leveille said all 11 clinics in the municipality used to have emergency care for their clients.
"It just slowly, very quietly started disappearing," said Leveille. "Most people were never even informed."
She said without emergency care in Chatham-Kent it's an hour's drive to Windsor or London and in most situations the animals can't survive that long.
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