In America, we love our pets. During the Covid shutdowns, it seemed more people loved them than ever. And that comes with a hard reality. Across the country today, there are more sick animals than there are veterinarians to care for them. That’s today’s cover story: how the pandemic pet boom has been followed by the great veterinary shortage.
The following is a transcript of a report from “Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson.”
Watch the video by clicking the link at the end of the page.
These two puppies got a home with Deborah Forbes and her husband in June of last year. A few weeks later, Tanner — on the left — started crying and didn’t want to be touched. The regular family emergency vet turned him away.
Deborah Forbes: I don’t understand how you can call yourself an emergency vet, and you can’t take someone who was having a severe emergency with an animal. It wasn’t like their parking lot had 40 cars in it. It just was, looked like a normal day, and they just weren’t taking clients anymore. So then we had to go to the other one that I was not familiar with, and they were very short-staffed as well. And I think because they were short-staffed, I think, they did an X-ray. “Okay, he didn’t break anything. He’s fine. Send him on his way.”
But Tanner wasn’t fine. His legs became paralyzed, and he started bleeding profusely from a cut near his mouth. It took weeks to get an appointment with a specialist, and even longer to finally get an accurate diagnosis from his regular vet.
Forbes: By then we had no choice but to put him down because he was going to [inaudible] if we didn’t.
Sharyl: So sorry.
Sharyl: Is there a thought that if they had caught it, been able to treat it when you caught it or when it was finally caught, that there could have been a different outcome, or not really?
Forbes: I think that we probably would’ve handled everything differently. Would that have affected the outcome? I don’t know. I think that early on, if we could have known this and gotten that detected and had someone who knew what they were talking about, that there’s definitely a possibility that something more could have been done for him.
Around the same time, Leslie Howlett was in Elgin, Arizona, trying to get urgent care for her dog, Solomon. It would be the second time that year that local vets turned her away.
Leslie Howlett: My dog, Solomon, overnight developed a lump on his chin, which was growing rapidly. So I called several vets around town or in the vicinity, and no one could get them in. So I decided to go to emergency. I started calling emergency vets in Tucson, which is an hour away from us.
When she finally found an emergency clinic that would see Solomon, it was under Covid restrictions that she says left her waiting in the car with no information for one hour, then two, then four.
Howlett: So I was in the car a total of near 12 hours, sitting in that parking lot in the dark, in a neighborhood that wasn’t the greatest. So I didn’t want to get out of the car. And I was stuck. I didn’t know to go home, to go get something to eat or wait. No one would give me any information about whether to stay there or leave or anything.
Sharyl: What are your thoughts about this as a trend in the industry, what the impact of this may be?
Howlett: I don’t know what’s happening with the veterinarians lately, but even the equine vets, everyone is hard to get. They’re backed up for weeks, where two or three years ago, I could call and get in that same day. I don’t know if there’s a shortage of vets, or people bought too many pets during Covid and everybody’s trying to get in.
It’s all of the above. Across the country, animal owners are getting turned away by short-staffed veterinary offices and emergency clinics. Patients are frequently sent hours away to neighboring states to look for care — but still coming up empty.
Sharyl: Were you aware that people were having more trouble getting appointments, and particularly emergency appointments, for their pets?
Kaylene Gloor: Over the last two years? Oh, for sure. Yeah.
Kaylene Gloor is co-medical director of Clarendon Animal Care in Arlington, Virginia, where 14 doctors have seen thousands of pets and started finding it more and more difficult to get critically sick animals into emergency hospitals.
Gloor: So in this area, we’ve got — we’re lucky. We’ve got a lot of 24-hour emergency referral hospitals. And I would say it’s not uncommon for us to call three to four of them to find out where we can get a patient transferred.
Sharyl: Is that new compared to five years ago?
Gloor: Absolutely. It happened pretty quickly. It was — by like May to June of 2020 — it was very apparent that it was hard to get into places. I used to work at one of the local emergency referral hospitals. I have a lot of their staff on my cell phone. And so texts tended to be like, “Please, please, please, I’ve got a patient intubated on the table. It needs a ventilator. How do we make this work?” And so trying to pull some strings that way.
On the supply side, the veterinary industry already had a high turnover rate. Each year, one in six vets and one in four technicians leaves their job. And veterinarians commit suicide at a greater than average rate. During the pandemic, many say they faced bullying and abuse from customers frustrated by everything from cost of care to Covid measures.
Gloor: And then a lot of people just got kind of either scared of going into work or didn’t feel comfortable or just flat-out burnt-out, and a lot of people left the industry.
Nationwide, the veterinary profession is sounding the alarm.
YouTube Vet: If you didn’t know, the veterinary industry is facing a crisis as it relates to an increasing demand, and perhaps a lower supply, relatively speaking, than there’s ever been.
Beyond the pets we love, the veterinary shortage has become a critical issue for large animals and livestock that we count on for our food supply.
Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (Dec. 6, 2022): It is a critical shortage, and we are losing animals because we just have no one to come to the farm in time to save them.
The issue was raised when a Department of Agriculture official testified at a Senate hearing late last year.
Sen. Hyde-Smith: What are your views on the veterinary shortages, and how open are you to additional conversations on how we can get more veterinarians into rural America?
Chavonda Jacobs-Young: It’s interesting because every young person I talked to who’s interested in animal science, I beg them — I beg, literally beg and plead with them — to look at large animals.
The bottom line: staffing isn’t up to par with demand. And according to one projection, by 2030, we’ll need 133,000 more technicians and 41,000 more vets.
By way of advice, Gloor says you may not always have a heads up, but if your pet is showing signs of illness, don’t wait until it turns into an emergency.
Gloor: And I would also say, make sure that you have a relationship with a general practice ahead of time. So don’t wait to adopt a pet and then seek veterinary care because there’s a problem.
Sadly, there are many stories of pets that have failed to survive the shortage. But we’re happy to report that Leslie Howlett’s dog, Solomon, did get the emergency surgery he needed. Today, he’s doing just fine.
Sharyl (on-camera): Some states are getting creative. A proposal in California would give up to $150,000 in student debt relief to licensed vets in exchange for working at a California animal shelter for at least five years.
Watch cover story here.
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Interesting article. As an owner of multiple pets, I sought a new veterinarian when the practice I had been using implemented the ridiculous, unscientific, fear-based COVID practices, refusing to allow pet owners inside their practices and expecting us to drop off what are family members to most of us as if they were dry cleaning. Funny how they could interact with you to take a credit card or payment. I decided that if they were this ignorant about basic transmission of airborne viruses and actually thought a mask would prevent illness, they were not intelligent enough to be treating my pets. Actually worked out well, because I found a much more competent practice.
A follow-up to this story might be a discussion of why there are so many sick pets. Why all the allergies, skin conditions, early arthritis, cancers, tumors, and more? Look at what the COVID “vaccines” are doing to people now, and I think we might find a clue. Big pharma pushes lots of drugs through the veterinary industry as well, trying to frighten concerned owners into giving their pets “necessary shots” year after year. This is likely causing immense damage to immune systems, especially as animals age and the injuries accumulate. This just means more drugs for “treatment” and more revenue streams for pharma. Our pets suffer horribly. Look too at the poor quality of commercial pet food, most of which is made from the inedible waste discarded from food processing for humans. Add irresponsible breeding by individuals trying to make extra money trafficking dogs, and I think we are at the tip of the iceberg of why we have so many sick pets.
I am a Veterinary Hospital Manager for a busy 3 doctor practice where I have worked since since 1991. I can simply add to this that the veterinary industry, nationwide is diverse and requirements vary from state to state. In Texas, for example, technicians do not have to be licensed in order to practice. With that being said, the average unlicensed veterinary technician may have 10+ years of experience and still be making anywhere from $13 to 20 an hour. Usually a full-time technician works 40 hours a week or more. In Texas, a “Licensed Veterinary Technician” will have a student debt of anywhere from $35k to 60K that they will have incurred to become an LVT. They will make just slightly more at $16 to 22 an hour. Veterinarians will have a student debt of anywhere from $100k to 300k and they are not paid a whole lot… certainly not as much as a human doctor.
With all that being said we then have to staff for support… Receptionist, Kennels, Assistants… all earning hourly wages ranging from minimum to at most $20 an hour. These are all professions where medical knowledge is a MUST…I literally have 5 places within a 10 mile radius that require no medical knowledge, very little training and all have signs on their premises stating “Now hiring $15 to 21 an hour”. This means that in a high pressure, high stress, high physical requirement environments we no have competing jobs paying the same or more and requiring a LOT less effort, knowledge, and physicality. A young job-seeker can literally go be a cashier at a local gas station for easily $5 to 10 an hour more than I can offer them… It’s a no brainer.
The staff that is left working in the Veterinary field is those individuals that have a “passion” for medicine. People like my team who have endured triaging in the rain and Texas heat, people that come to work with a foot of ice on the roads, people that endure getting bitten, scratched, vomited on, peed on, etc. all while navigating long hours, short breaks, and very little monetary reward for it. This is JUST the support staff. The veterinarians are also dealing with all the above in addition to the pet owners being short tempered, rude, and overall dissatisfied with having to be asked to “wait in the car” while we fix their pets. We removed COVID restrictions as soon as possible and we never stopped taking new patients at our hospital but with that comes the myriad of “price shoppers”, appointment skippers, and generally those who have waited until their pets are dying and need to come in “NOW”. We accommodate everyone as much as we can but in the end can you blame people for being burned out of working through all this while making a wage that cannot sustain all the price increases that have happened nationwide across the board? It’s a tough field to be in and one that requires an unparalleled passion and a level of compassion that will take a toll out of anyone. All we ask for is please be nice to those that have showed up to work and when you get your bill please remember that when your “human” Doctor charges you for his services… you just don’t complain about the price… Veterinary medicine is exactly like human medicine… same drugs, mostly same procedures. and certainly same price increases and shortages that they experience. If we raise our prices it’s not because we are “price gauging” it’s just so we can keep the lights on and the doors open!
I made the suggestion and “stumped” for it decades ago – that cities, counties, even states contract with would-be medical students for services in return for college tuition money.. I made the same suggestion again & again where veterinary students and their services were the matter.. Enslavement to government seems to hold some kind of allure, one that people like me will never understand. Wife Rita and I have two “street rescue” Rottweilers, will perhaps get another. One of them, “Hans” came to us on Christmas Day two years ago. “Max,” the other was starving when a lady took him in. We then adopted him, even though he would soon cost us more than $5,000 in veterinary care costs – FOUR surgeries. My wife and I wish we could do more.