How long is it acceptable to wait for a vet?

[Drum]

Just wanting opinions really, in an out of hours emergency (life/death serious) how long do you think is acceptable for
a. the vet to phone you back for over the phone advice?
b. the vet to come out?
thanks x

 

[*hic*]

That depends on what else they are trying to save at that moment. Your animal is, of course, your priority but they may already have an emergency on their hands.

My vets would call as soon as they had a hand free, even if just to say "Can I call you back in five" but if they are already on an emergency call out I accept that I'd have to wait. Equally I understand that it will take some time to travel to me from the practice HQ and longer if they're already on a call out the other side of the practice.

In short, I know that they will make their best efforts.

 

[SuperH]

It depends where you live and how far and in what conditions they are having to travel in.

In a life/death situation I would expect them to come as soon as they possibly could. Our vet would be here in about half an hour (out of hour and working hours) as that is how long it take to get here from both their base and homes unless they are already closer or out on another call.

 

[dianchi]

I would expect a call within 5 mins to know that you msg has been received, and visit within the hour- you don't know how far away they are from you or already on a call.

New vets we have started to use are very good and have their vets in different areas within their coverage and if its a horse is at deaths door will call an off duty vet if they are nearer.
V impressed!

 

[Drum]

were about 20 mins away from the practice on good roads. vet wasn't on another call.

 

[Goldenstar]

Depends on the circumstance .
I would expect a vet to call back within minutes in an emergency situation.
If it was out of hours vet won't necessarily have been at the practice they well have been at home on call So they may well have been driving further than from the practise.

 

[hayinamanger]

If I had an emergency, I would not want the vet to waste time ringing me, I'd want him on the road asap, a call from the practice advising an eta would be appreciated.

 

[ihatework]

I would expect a call back within 10 minutes (ideally sooner).

How long to get to me? Well it depends on where I am in relation to where the vet is and what animal he is/isn't attending to at the time. But assuming (s)he is not on a current call then I would expect them to be on the road within 5 minutes from putting the phone down to me. This is only in a life/death situation obviously.

 

[Goldenstar]

If it was a needing a gun emergency the vet would have to go to the surgery and then come out I am not sure that they even keep enough stuff to PTS by injection in car all the time .

 

[Arizahn]

Just wanting opinions really, in an out of hours emergency (life/death serious) how long do you think is acceptable for
a. the vet to phone you back for over the phone advice?
b. the vet to come out?
thanks x

were about 20 mins away from the practice on good roads. vet wasn't on another call.

Given these circumstances, I would hope for an immediate call back and arrival within an hour depending on the exact situation, or no call back and arrival within thirty minutes.

I hope you are alright.

 

[2horsesnomoney]

It is difficut to say without knowing the full circumstances and time of your call. If its out of hours then maybe 5-10min but if the vet is on another emergancy then it takes longer an depending on what your emergancy was if the vet is busy they would need to prioritise calls. Luckily for me phone call has been made within 5 min and vet arrived within the hour normally but the nature of emergancies and area covered by the vet this is not always possible. Can you expand on what your emergancy wasortie of day? this might help us to help you ...? I do hope your horse is ok though

 

[Wishful]

If it was a needing a gun emergency the vet would have to go to the surgery and then come out I am not sure that they even keep enough stuff to PTS by injection in car all the time .

As far as I'm aware equine vets do carry the pts stuff all the time but of course they only carry enough for their worst case scenario day. OH could deal with 2 horses and a pony before needing replenishment but would have to go to a particular practice base to get the gun. More time added by the means of obtaining it and ammo from separate locked cabinets with different keys and locking the lot to the chassis as per the terms of the licence.
Waiting time depends on time of day. At night they need to get out of bed and into clothes which will take longer than day time. Very location dependant as well. Not being allowed flashing lights means they're at the mercy of other drivers which can massively extend journey times. A major road and rush hour also makes delays. Home may well be away from the practice and with the law of Murphy chances are it would be the wrong way!

Phone wise generally call once a hand is free although the on call vet might phone around colleagues if they were tied up for too long for the call.

 

[twiggy2]

if my vets are busy and you leave a message it says if you have not heard in ten mins phone again-if their phone keeps ringing they know it is a true emergency and will interrupt a conversation/treatment with a client to take your call, my vet fields all his calls out of hours so if he is busy with a current emergency and yours is a true emergency he will direct you to another vet that can attend sooner

 

[rara007]

I'd expect 15mins to call back to be triaged or to be referred onto another vets if they can not get there within an hour/are already on a long call out- we have plenty of vets in the area so shouldn't have to wait long if it's truely life and death.

 

[Dizzydancer]

Its a tough one .We had a routine appointmnt for my firends horse where we waited 7hours for vet to turn up, it was a sunday and the poor vet on call had emergency after emergency and at one point had to decide between a horse with colic and one with a nosebleed- i dont envy them making that decision of who to treat.

In your situation I would expect a call within 5-10mins ideally when on route and would want them there within 30mins at longest. Our regular yard vet is actually 40mins away if based at the practice but we have numerous local vets who I would call in a dire emergency who would attend within 30mins.

 

[Wishful]

Its a tough one .We had a routine appointmnt for my firends horse where we waited 7hours for vet to turn up, it was a sunday and the poor vet on call had emergency after emergency and at one point had to decide between a horse with colic and one with a nosebleed- i dont envy them making that decision of who to treat.

In your situation I would expect a call within 5-10mins ideally when on route and would want them there within 30mins at longest. Our regular yard vet is actually 40mins away if based at the practice but we have numerous local vets who I would call in a dire emergency who would attend within 30mins.

Poor vet. OH has only ever worked at larger practices where in extremis you can get one of the others out even if not on call that day. Think he'd've gone to the nosebleed and sent the LA on call vet to the colic to do the basic pain relief buscopan stuff at least if none of the other equine vets were around that day which is pretty unlikely. Big issue for single handers as the fall back will always be a rival.

 

[Goldenstar]

I many of us will have had the the experience of the 11 am appointment that happens a 7pm .
I don't mind this as other day it will be my horse that's the emergency .
I would never use a vet practise that was small .
Four equine vet in my practise and I think nineteen vets in total gives you plenty of cover .
You won't always get the vet you want out of hours but you always get a vet quickly .

 

[now_loves_mares]

My surgery has a second on call. I've never had to wait more than a couple of minutes for a response. An hour is probably the longest I've waited for them to be there. Once my vet was here treating colic and a choke case called in, I told him to leave (my colic case was mild and drugs already administered) but he said the choke is always scarier to the owner but not usually as serious as it looks so he waited with my mare a bit longer before leaving. So I think the triage call is critical in establishing priority as well.

 

[Ibblebibble]

in a broken leg needing pts situation my old vet was there in just over 20 mins from the call back from the office on a saturday morning, fully prepared with needle and gun. call back from office to me was about 5 mins.

new vets, pager service out of hours and vet phoned back within 5 mins, not a life or death situation but again a saturday morning and it was 40 mins turnout time.

 

[Dizzydancer]

the practice I was on about isnt small it is actually an equine practice but bizarrly the other 2 vets were both away for the weekend- it was actually one of the other vets who turned up at 7 after having to come home from his wifes birthday weekend early!!

We have since chnaged yard vets as there were a few issues going on within the equine specific practice which I wont go into but we do think had an impact on the on call vet not ringing for assistance sooner.

For the record the vet on call went to the colic case- she reckoned if the bleeder was a true emergency it would be dead before she got there so could more likely save the colic case- I asked as was intrigued! the bleeder survived btw

 

[smokey]

In a non emergency, my vet got to me within 30 minutes of my call to the practise. (horse had cut her face, not life threatening, but nasty) i was really impressed, given that he was a fair few miles away, and left as soon as he got my call. I would have understood if he had called to say he was attending a real emergency.

 

[smellsofhorse]

Out of hours totally depends on lots of things.
They would call back within a few minutes for advice and and etc.

They could be on another call or be in bed!
Then it totally depends where they live compared to your location.

I'm sure if they were really held up they would get a closer vet to come.

 

[Queenbee]

Just wanting opinions really, in an out of hours emergency (life/death serious) how long do you think is acceptable for
a. the vet to phone you back for over the phone advice?
b. the vet to come out?
thanks x

As much as we all want a vet out right now, I think it's all relative, if one vet is on call and he/she has two 'life or death' cases, then they are in the awful situation of having to prioritise one over the other, having to make an educated decision. This may well be a reason for delay in the vet coming out, however, I would expect a call back almost immediately, at least that way you can be informed of the time frame and make the decision to call another vet if needed. Without knowing what the 'life or death' situation is, I couldn't really comment further, as there are so many situations that could be classed as this but some would take precedent over others. However, if you didn't have a pretty immediate call, then I would be very unhappy although to be honest, if I didn't get one I'd be making more calls to other vets to get someone out.

 

[Naryafluffy]

As much as we all want a vet out right now, I think it's all relative, if one vet is on call and he/she has two 'life or death' cases, then they are in the awful situation of having to prioritise one over the other, having to make an educated decision. This may well be a reason for delay in the vet coming out, however, I would expect a call back almost immediately, at least that way you can be informed of the time frame and make the decision to call another vet if needed. Without knowing what the 'life or death' situation is, I couldn't really comment further, as there are so many situations that could be classed as this but some would take precedent over others. However, if you didn't have a pretty immediate call, then I would be very unhappy although to be honest, if I didn't get one I'd be making more calls to other vets to get someone out.

Having been with a vet whilst they had their hand in a place where the sun don't shine on my horse I wouldn't expect an 'immediate' call back, they can't exactly answer the phone and speak whilst concentrating on other things (least of which is not having their arm broken if the horse decides it's not as sedated as we think it is)!!
Same with scoping a horse to put parafin (or something) in it's stomach for colic, they can't stop half way through doing this to answer even another emergency call and it might take them longer than a couple of minutes to be where they can make a call.

I would probably start to get antsy after about 15min if I hadn't heard back from them, again our vets have an equine hospital so on the return of the call if they can't deal with it one of the other equine vets would come out.

 

[Ibblebibble]

on my vets mobile answer machine it asks you to phone the office if there is an emergency. makes sense to me as otherwise the vets are going to spend half their day on the phone to various clients instead of being able to actually get on and work! the office girls are fab and if it's an emergency will know which vet is closest to you etc and who to page first. i think sometimes we forget we are not their sole client and expect them to be at our beck and call day and night.

 

[ester]

I'd expect a call back in 10-15 min and as they are about 40 min away (though seem to do that remarkably quickly at times) - further if they are other side of their patch so if proper life/death situ would then expect them to suggest going elsewhere if needed. If I absolutely knew something needed PTS I would phone someone closer anyway.

 

[Zero00000]

Glad horse is ok, I have had a bleeder, horse cut artery in her face, she was very agitated so we could not stem the bleed as she kept throwing her head around, vet admitted to breaking some speed limits to get to us, she took about 40 minutes and was a fair few miles away, it felt like forever, with blood going everywhere, but she got to us as quick as she could, it was late on a Sunday and the practise is over an hour away,
They do their best, and if there is one vet between 2 emergencies I would expect the vet to direct me to another vet, not chose between who would survive or not..

 

[sarahann1]

Just wanting opinions really, in an out of hours emergency (life/death serious) how long do you think is acceptable for
a. the vet to phone you back for over the phone advice?
b. the vet to come out?
thanks x

How long is a piece of string??

It really does depend on the situation, where the vet is currently and what your call out is for.

I had to get the vet out on Sunday for a bashed eye, if the vet had gotten a colic/broken leg call out in the meantime I'd fully expect them to have gone to that callout 1st and me to have waited much longer.

 

[Drum]

Its a big equine practice connected to an equine hospital so if they are short staffed they use hospital staff too e.g. if there are multiple emergencies.

 

[Queenbee]

I do mean 'immediate' as in swiftly as possible, I fully appreciate that they may be in the middle of something, but I agree, fifteen minutes is a max for me too.