You'll never see a poor vet !!!

Banzai_Joe

Banzai_Joe

Banzai_Joe

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Joined
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Location
Midlands, UK
So, our 6 year old border collie, Skye has been limping on and off for months.
She's a typical border, nuttier than a snickers, wants to run and play all the time.
Took her to the vets and after an x-ray costing £200 :eek: in which the vet couldn't see the issue due to excessive inflammation, he sent the xrays to a specialist who diagnosed sever DJD (degenerative joint disease).
She's got an appointment with said specialist on 3rd august, costing £300-£400 during which they do more xray and then ascertain whether she needs a hip replacement.........costing £5k....FIVE THOUSAND POUNDS!!!!

Luckily we have pet insurance that will cover all of this.

But, oh my god....how much?!

I've always felt that people become vets because they care about animals.......now i have to think that 'some' are in it for the money.

I mean, come on, how the hell can things cost THAT much?
Out of hours call out charge £116. Its just their time you're paying for, not for specific things that cost a fortune.
A plumber wouldn't charge that much to stop your house from flooding in the night if you needed one.

Thing is, vets know you'll not let your pet suffer unduly, so you'll pay it. If we didn't have insurance, we'd still pay the £k5 and forego our honeymoon at the end of august.
Not fair though.

Just sayin'.....

Anway, here's our little skye rocket. We wouldn't part with her for the world.

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I thought vets liking their money rather a lot was a well-known thing? Nice looking dog, glad to hear she'll be fixed up. :)
 
Then you are going to an expensive vet! My mums dog just had an x-ray, two lots of meds, acupuncture for her back legs/spine twice and that only came to £186ish. ALthough, I do understand a hip replacement being expensive.
 
One of my old cats was put down at the ripe old age of 18 but there was a small chance she could have lived a bit longer had we had 'specialist' treatment that would have cost hundreds of pounds but our vet advised against it because she said there's no guarantee it would work and was very pricey. So they're not just in it for the money otherwise she would have told us to do given our obvious vulnerability at the time.
 
Well I am going to get on my high horse over this.

You only think it's a lot as you have to pay it whereas NHS treatment is free.

Vet's are just as qualified as Doctors. Did you know that Doctor's can;t legally treat animals but Vets can legally treat people?

The x -ray machines cost the same as the ones in the hospitals. Taking an x-ray will involve a qualified vet plus a nurse and premises etc.

My gf is a vet so I am biased. However, when in practice she earnt only around £42k per annum and that was sometimes working 36 hours straight if there were lots of emergencies. In general, she always did 60 to 70 hour weeks minimum.

Now compare that to an equally qualified GP or dentist. They earn £50k to £100k per annum.

In fact I think a starting vet only earns around £22k annum.

She always said she did it for the animals and not the money as if animals weren't involved then there were damn easier ways of earning a living than being a vet.

On another note, hope your dog is okay

And lastly, that is quite some charge even for what I have just said above. Our horse got kicked in the face. It went to Liverpool,had an MRI scan, a 5 hour surgery with 3 vets to recontruct 17 broken peices of her skull (wired them together) and two weeks recovery time in stables. Total cost was £2,500.
 
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I think your talking ##### about vets
Like in life you get good ones and bad ones.
My wife is also a vet (mixed practice) 60 hours a week
For £37,000 a year so not really in it for the money
 
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fadetoblack said:
I think your talking ##### about vets
Like in life you get good ones and bad ones.
My wife is also a vet (mixed practice) 60 hours a week
For £37,000 a year so not really in it for the money
Click to expand...

Looks at location, wonders if we know each other? :eek:
 
Thanks Greebo, no problems with you being on your high horse mate. I do think that most are in it for the welfare of animals, and to be fair our vet has always been great and often undercharged for certain treatments. Its the 'specialists' fee that seem very high.
I have to admit that i didn't really think about the fact that we pay NI to cover our NHS treatment, whereas veterinary services don't get that funding i guess.
Luckily for us our insurance covers her for £7k of treatment per ailment per year, so we're all good.
She's on tramadol (human form) and the 2nd picture shows her zonked out after taking some, lol.
 
No worries, I just went into rant mode as I hate it when people start talking about how much vets charge as it's one of my pet peeves.
 
How much do you think it would cost for a hip op on yourself if you went private? £5k for a dog hip sounds about right to me /shrug

Its not like the vet is pocketing £5k here.
 
A digital x-ray machine costs £120k to buy and install (roughly). I'm sure there are a lot of costs that all add up! But yes, I'm sure they get paid well, it's a very highly skilled profession.
 
ubersonic said:
How much do you think it would cost for a hip op on yourself if you went private? £5k for a dog hip sounds about right to me /shrug

Its not like the vet is pocketing £5k here.
Click to expand...

I've no idea tbh, i wasn't thinking as much as £5k, but i simply don't know.

However, i've kind of retracted my initial post after thinking on what greebo said.

edit: just google it.....around £8.5k !!!! eek!
 
Vets arent ripping people off at all.

They charge an appropriate amount to keep themselves in bussiness.
Usually medicines ect are higher than online prices because they HAVE to buy them from the UK, were as online places generally import them at dirt cheap prices.

Just because we have the NHS you dont understand the prices of human proceedures, nevermind animal.
 
Pet insurance is probably the worse thing to ever happen for the pet industry.

Its given vets the right to charge whatever they like as they know the owners will not be paying directly.
 
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