Emergency Perspective: Planning for Peace of Mind in Overnight Monitoring

Once a major veterinary procedure is complete, pets are often not in the clear. The next 12 to 24 hours can critical in ensuring that recovery is smooth and uneventful. In some situations major intervention is required to ensure that recovery continues as hoped. Enter the role of the veterinary emergency centre.

Melbournians have been extremely fortunate in the last 3 years to have benefited from the establishment of several new veterinary emergency centres across the metropolitan area. No pet in metropolitan Melbourne is now more than 30 minutes from an emergency centre with most being much closer.

There has been a corresponding increase in the availability of overnight transfers to emergency centres for post-surgical and ill animals. Relatively few pet owners require this type of service, but those who have utilised this service have seen its true value. For those who have not, there are a number of considerations which mean that one night in an emergency centre may be the best investment you can make in your pet.

Minimising the potential for complications

The simple fact is that complications can occur at 3am, just as easily as at any other time. Often time, money and emotional effort are spent on an initial procedure with little thought of what may happen in the first 24 hours after major surgery or medical intervention. A complication can be trivial or life threatening and no vet or owner has the benefit of a crystal ball. It benefits no one to identify an overnight complication at 8am the following morning.

All things being equal, leaving an urgent complication for hours will result in far more time and money to get back on track than if the complication was identified and attended to promptly. The key role of the emergency vet and nurse in monitoring the patient is the primary weapon available to ensure that a spotfire does not burn down the house. The examples are countless where patients have happily trotted out the door the next morning after a night which may have ended far worse, simply because a vet or nurse acted quickly to control a complication in the small hours of the morning. Without the aforementioned crystal ball, the next best thing is definitely a set of qualified and experienced eyes sitting in a fully equipped veterinary hospital.

The realisation that most animals require emergency care only once in their life

A high percentage of pets attending the Southern Animal Emergency Centre visit only once in their life. Although high need care comes with a price tag, it is helpful to maintain perspective on this and to realise that appropriate attention at a particular point in time can lead to many more happy and healthy years for a pet. Spread over the life of your pet, the cost of emergency care often pales into insignificance compared to more regular but modest bills such as pet food. However, emergency care can be key to the timely recovery of a much loved four legged family member and can have a lifelong effect on a pet’s recovery from critical illnesses or injuries.

Healthy pets make for prosperity

A pet who is happy and healthy can add immeasurable value to the life of their family over many years. Likewise, the same pet can add value to the primary care vet, whose entire relevance hinges on supporting pets through life’s veterinary ups and downs. Without the pet there are no positives for the family and no role for the vet. The ongoing benefit of strong, sound and comprehensive emergency treatment to both the family and primary care vet is therefore significant over time. This perspective may be lost in the often fleeting but critical time that a pet visits an emergency centre. Treatment comes at a price, but is often a deciding factor in ensuring that further complications, expenses and emotional hardship are not encountered.

Working together increases the benefits for all concerned

As with most things in life, a small amount of cooperation can lead to much larger gains for all involved. For pet, owner, primary care vet and emergency centre alike, there is much more to be gained through collaboration than working alone. Rather than dividing the same pie into smaller pieces, each party can gain a much larger slice of benefits through collaboration. This pie includes many aspects of treatment, including health benefits, financial benefits, emotional benefits and longer term relationship benefits. After all, the primary goal of treatment is a happy and healthy pet. The Southern Animal Emergency Centre has helped thousands of pets through critical times in their lives. Many of these have gone on to live happy and completely normal lives and continue to enrich the lives of their families. These same pets can also be found in the consultation rooms of their primary care vets for years to come. Surely there can be no argument that this outcome provides significant benefits for all concerned.

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