What do people do when they cant afford the vet??

This week made me think, how lucky i was to have money put aside for ozzies health care but what do people do when they dont have insurance and cant afford vet care for their dogs ..?
I know you have the rspca and pdsa but if your working but in a low income job i take it your not entitled to help ...
I guess people will say if you cant afford to take your dog to the vet dont get one ...

Why would you get a dog and not have insurance?! I realise that you're not able to insure animals with existing conditions and there are some other exclusions but I do feel that if you get a dog you have a financial responsibility, as well as many others obviously, to ensure you can always look after it. Just my opinion though .

The RSPCA if you do have a hospital near you, don't require much in the way of proof of income BUT they are not free and will send you a bill.

PDSA relies on contributions, and you can only qualify if you are on certain benefits - i.e. Council tax and/or HB. They also have a scheme countrywide, with vets in many towns & cities, called PetAid which gets them treatment at a local vets, in areas where there are no PDSA hospitals.

Not everyone can afford insurance, and circumstances change. It would be unfair to suggest that every time someone finds themselves drawing benefits they should rehome their animals. That's just drawing on the Disposable Society ethos, since of course when times are better they can just go get a 'new one'.

Far better to help those who really want to keep their companions. They are the ones much more likely to improve their circumstances rather than dump on the overloaded system. Yes of course you do get people who 'play' the PDSA and pull up in big cars etc. but it's unfair to tar everyone with the same brush.

I don't insure my dogs simply because Insurance companies are not there to help animals they are there to make money for their shareholders.

There have been times when I have had no money, but my dogs never went without medical treatment-I went without food etc to ensure that my animals were fed & looked after.

If I was to insure all my dogs it would cost me all my income for a week a month-despite the fact than none of my current dogs have every had any non elective treatment(ie only spaying, hip scoring, DNA tests etc)

I'm not suggesting that people that don't insure their dogs don't care about them, sorry don't think I put my point across very well, I just like to know that if something happened I wouldn't have to worry about the money aspect of it immediately. I would do exactly the same if mine needed treatment that wasn't covered etc, they are completely dependent on us aren't they and any responsible owner will do whatever they can for the best interests of the animal. It's the people that get an animal on a whim and put no thought into the repercussions of the action that I was meaning, and I feel a rant coming on as a girl at training was just talking this week that she would have her pup pts if she cost too much at the vets with a potential problem so I'm going to cut myself off .

I think that this is actually quite a difficult issue.

The costs of Vet care are rising and rising, certainly ahead of inflation, and there are more and more treatments available for dogs of a growing level of complexity and expense.

I can't help feeling that this will increasingly leave that big chunk of society that don't qualify for benefits and yet struggle to make ends meet with a serious dilemma.

I also worry that as some Vets seem to be more about money than care that our pets will be put through unnecessary treatments.

I also worry that it is getting harder and harder to know when is the right time to let our beloved pets go and stop trying one more treatment.

I would like to add that I am fortunate enough to be able to afford insurance for my dogs and I've never had the misfortune to be in this position but it is something I have thought about.

J.

I know circumstances change during dog ownership , but when you choose to have a dog shouldnt you consider all the costs , if you were having a car you would make sure you can insure, tax. MOT and put fuel in it otherwise why would you have one as you wouldnt be able to use it. Maybe sometimes people get caught up in how lovely a dog is but dont think through all the possible future costs and then run in to problems when big vet bills appear.

Does the same apply for such insurances as household / car and so on?

Insurance for your pets is like any other, the reason behind the "companies" is irrelevant, its a security blanket for you the owner to provide cover for your pets when needed.

I understand why some dont or cant insure their dogs, to many dogs not enough income.

The PDSA /RSPCA is there for those on a low income.

So there is no real excuse for an animal to go without treatment if your funds dont stretch to insurance.

Personally the "savings" for vet treatment, is something I feel may fall short at times, would you have enough in your savings to pay a bill that amounted to 4/5k

I would rather give something up/pull my belt in a little tighter to make sure I had insurance than not!!

We don't insure because when we did everytime we claimed we were refused or the vet required the payment before treatment and we had to wait weeks to see if we got any money back.

When our dogs need treatment we decide on case by case how we will fund it, we are at the moment paying on a credit card 0% interest for Duncan's lump removal after Christmas we will have paid that back and will book Mollie in for her eye problem.
Only time we have not paid for treatment was when our old Katie had so many problems and we were not guaranteed the treatment would cure them so we had to admit defeat and just had palliative care for 6 months before we PTS. We felt guilt over that for a few months but looking back we could have paid nearly £600 and still had to PTS and she was 13 so had quite a long life already.

Usually they blame me because their dog is sick or injured and I can't fix them for free. There seems to be an attitude that vets should work for free and out of the goodness of their hearts, and also, that vets are out to fleece people for needless tests and treatments and are all about money and hate animals and eat them for tea (insert maniacal laughter here)

I'm sure, as in all professions, there are some bad in there with the good, but trust me, you don't go to vet school to become wealthy. It doesn't work that way. I know. People go into the veterinary field because they love animals and want to help them.

Now, we live in a litigious society (which can be a bad thing) and also there has been a boom in research and knowledge about animal health. Tests and treatments for diseases we didn't know existed 20 years ago, exist today. So where you family vet would have given your dog a steroid injection and sent it on its way before, now we know better. More specific tests give us the specific answers we need to best treat your dogs illness or injury.

Now, for the litigious part of it. Now that we KNOW better, we must offer this new, higher, standard of care to all our patients. If we do not do so, and the pet does not do well, we can be sued and rightly so.

Would you not be angry if your pet died from an illness that could have been tested for and or treated but those possibilities were not offered to you?

As we say here, pets are a privilege, not a right. If you have a pet with no back up plan for major illness or injury, then thats on you, not your vet or vet nurse.

Now I am in no way saying that poor people can't have pets. I know many poor people who put their pets needs above their own and do without proper food or other necessities to get their pets cared for.

At least you in the UK have subsidised vet care for some, we don't have it for anyone. you can find low cost vaccines and spay/neuter pretty much anywhere but thats where it stops.

Its horrible that these life and death decisions get made every day and often based on financial limits....but its just the world we live in. Its a risk we take as pet owners. Any one of us could find out tomorrow that our beloved pet has some major illness or injury that requires intensive treatment, surgery or care that is out of our budget and can't be managed. At least, in that event, we have the option to humanely end our pets suffering.