My wife is a keen sewer and has a 'sewing room' where the cat is banned. She also regularly goes on various knitting and sewing forums. She has just read me the tale of a woman in America whose cat kept vomiting having 'sneaked' into her sewing room. Initially thinking "hairballs?" she ended up taking it to the vet who discovered a thread wrapped round his tongue. Unfortunately, it turned out to be the end of 7ft length that went through his digestive system all the way to his colon! Why am I posting this you ask? Well the vet operated on the cat to extract the offending thread. Now I know vets are skilled, take several years to train, need lots of expensive specialist medical equipment. Nevertheless a couple of hours maximum operating on the cat to remove said thread and keeping it overnight for observation cost the owner a cool 7k dollars ..yep... seven thousand dollars!!! 'America -The Land of the bloody expensive'! Sorry, but IMO, not so much extracting the thread but taking the p*ss. By comparison, our vet in Italy when our cat recently started having multiple fits (30+ per day)... did multiple tests bloods, toxicology full examination (*whilst we watched and waited), medicated him , messaged us daily for updates and give advice (including weekends) and in fact, made a special trip to open the Surgery for us on a *Sunday morning when we phoned for an emergency appointment hoping to get something first thing Monday. She also wormed him whilst he was there and gave us a prescription for feline fenobarbitol. All that for the princely sum of 150 euros!! He is now on the way to a full recovery... no more fits and reduced to quarter of a table a day and should be stopping taking them altogether next week. Unlike any other vet we have had she likes to give him cuddles when she sees him! For her it is a vocation and not a cash cow. I know medical cover in U.S. is extortionate but owning an animal looks almost as bad!
I've just had to take my kitten who is about 10 months to the vets as she was throwing up, not eating/drinking, and was very lethargic. I hadn't got insurance as I had to let it lapse during the first lockdown thanks to money issues, and had not got around to setting it up again. They charged £30 for the initial consultation, decided they needed to do an x-ray at £300, and blood tests at another £135. From these, tey deduced they didn't know what was wrong, and would treat symptomatically instead. This led to 2 prescriptions at (i think) just under £30 each. So, £560 and they were still guessing at the cause(the difference in price will be explained in a bit!). Then they wanted to see her 24 hours later to check up on her. So we took her down again(£30) and the vet(a different one this time) said she was going to give the cat an enema(£35) and to wait in the car. While in the car, I checked the itemized bill from the day before and saw the £35 difference in price, but it wasn't listed what it was. So I went in and enquired. After much investigating on the part of the vet and receptionist, it turned out the previous vet had already given an enema, but didn't write in it the notes(but charged for it!) so it wasn't needed again, and I'm glad I noticed the charge before we were charged a second time. The vet did notice she was a bit hot, so decided to inject her with something to bring her temperature down(another £20), so that's another £50 on the bill £610 so far). She also told us not to give the cat the laxatives we had paid £30 fro the day before, and that she will have never really needed them as the enema will have done the job. This pissed me off a little as you can guess. They also wanted to see her in another 24 hours for a final check up. We took her down then(another £30), and the vet took her. She mentioned that she was still a little warn, but that was most likely down to the stress on being at a vets. I asked if this would have been the case yesterday too, and she confirmed it but refused to comment on why I'd been charged the £20 the day before to cool her down. So now shes got the all-clear, and that little bit of constipation has cost me £640! Moral to the story: GET INSURANCE!
It wasn't 'Abbey Vets' on Dodworth road by any chance? Before they took it the vet was a Mr Duffy who was great and not too pricey. When it became Abbey they seemed more interested in money than the animals (allegedly) at least that was how they appeared when we last used them many years ago. We found Vets for Pets on Huddersfield road they were great and very compassionate. They also had a good Insurance plan which my daughter took out when she got a cat Although that was a few years ago, Here in Italy .There is a large concern near us called FutureVet which is very 'corporate', money driven (i.e. very expensive and very impersonal (bear in mind they are dealing with concerned owners of sick animals). The one major advantage is they are open 24/7 so useful out of hours in the event of an emergency (although by all accounts the unsocial hours are staffed by newly qualified, inexperienced vets). Like I said though our Vet is a 'one person show' but she told us we can call her at any time in the event of a real emergency. She has many qualifications and years of experience to back them up. Her husband runs the small Petshop next to it and helps out when she needs a a 2nd pair of hands if an animal is, for example aggressive.