Where is the Humanity at the Vet Clinic?
I gather there is going to be a class action lawsuit against the pet food manufacturers responsible for the deaths of several cats recently. From what I understand, a few brands of pet food were contaminated, people bought them, their pets ate them, and several veterinary bills later, the pets died.
Okay. Fair enough. Except what struck me watching the news the other night were the veterinary bills. Some of them were huge. You really have to ask, or at least, I really have to ask - what the hell is going on when vets can get away with charging people the equivalent of a home down payment to treat and ultimately euthanize a cat?
I don't particularly like vets. I know that's a weird thing to hear someone say, but my experience with them has been that they have no understanding of human economics, so devoted are they to the health and well being of our pets.
I'd like to share a little story with you to show why I feel the way I do.
When my ex and I first moved in together, I decided one evening that what we needed to take the edge off living together, was a cat. So we headed down to the Humane Society, picked out a nice grey and white stray several months old, and headed home. She was our primary concern for several years, eventually becoming "just" the family pet, putting up with the usual indignities visited upon the family pet by the family kids.
Sixteen years after bringing her home from the Humane Society, she suddenly began to fail. One minute she was an old cat who slept all day in a cupboard, with me running interference for her every once in a while when the kids remembered they had a cat, the next she was leaving blood spots where I could see them, pooping anywhere but the kitty litter and dragging her hind legs.
To set the coming scene, please bear in mind - I had three little kids, my ex was away on business, the cat appeared to be in serious distress, unable to stay up on all fours. Oh - and we were on a very tight budget. A vert tight budget. One income, mortgage payments, three kids. That's important because what eventually came to pass haunts me to this day. It really and truly does. I have tears welling up in my eyes as I type this.
I decided, unilaterally, that my cat companion who had been with me through sixteen years of adult life, including a change from being a childless couple's main concern to a family of five's pet, would have to be put down, euthanized. I told the kids what I was planning to do, I phoned my ex and told him what I was planning to do, then I phoned the closest clinic to our house and told them what I was planning to do.
Well, let me tell you something, Dear Reader, the wall of resistance I ran up against - and I called five - 5 - clinics to ask about having my sixteen year old ailing cat very obviously in distress - euthanized, was akin to something out of a movie. You'd have thought I was attempting to perpetrate a crime against humanity, so strong was the reaction to my request to have my pet euthanized. In the end I paid a lot of money - a lot - to be told that, indeed, my beloved pet's bladder and kidneys were failing and that she could be kept alive for a little while but the treatment was expensive and, yes, she was dying.
I didn't have the money for expensive. I only had the money to have her euthanized. And now I didn't even have the money to be with her when the veterinary technician put her to sleep. In fact, to be with her when she was euthanized was going to cost twice as much as it would to simply leave her on the counter, have a seat, and wait until a technician came out, took her in the back, and gave her a needle.
To this day I regret that I didn't pay double the price to be with her when she got the needle. But at the time, it was just one more expense I couldn't afford. WE couldn't afford. Instead, I was treated curtly, told that they would look after her, there was no need to stay, and that I should leave.
And so it was that I left my cat behind, sitting in her kennel cab, waiting on the counter. She looked through the screen at me. And I said goodbye. The kids had done with their crying, I had resolved to be as matter of fact as I could, and we left the clinic. My heart felt like it was breaking. For double the price, I could have stayed, seen her through to the end. For double the price I could have stroked her while she passed on. For double the price I wouldn't have thought so many times since of how cruel economics can be.
By the time we had reached the car, I had changed my mind and decided to go back in to the clinic, to spend the extra money and be with her to the end.
"Oh, she's been done already." The woman at the counter said.
It had been five minutes. I left the clinic for the final time, reeling with emotion, disbelieving the uncomprehending cruelty of professional animal lovers for pet owners of limited means.
Anyway, that's what went through my mind when I saw some of those vet bills incurred by people trying to save their pets from dying after they'd eaten tainted pet food. And I'm sorry, but some of those bills, maybe even all of them, are unconscionable. There is no other word for it. I don't blame the pet owners, either. It's easy for any of us watching to say, "Who would spend that much on a cat?" More to the point, "Who couldn't afford to spend that much on a cat?" Indeed, I wonder about the many poor people who simply couldn't afford to pay ANY money to a veterinary clinic to save their beloved pet as its kidneys inevitably failed.
How is it that veterinarians, these animal loving entrepreneurs, have managed to slip under the radar of a society that prides itself on fairness, for so long? Why is that people aren't asking how come it is that the pets of rich people matter more than the pets of poor people? Because clearly, that is the case. There is something terribly Dickensian about one family not being able to be with their pet while she is put to sleep, while another can spend thousands to prolong its life for just a few weeks.
Isn't there?
