Advice Poor old lab on his last legs

[cHodAX]

well, in the light of what Cho said it's more understandable. I've been to a (decent) vet here in the NL a few times with both cats and dogs, and I don't think I heard any of the stuff you mentioned 0o

Yeah it is a massive problem here, in Greater Manchester alone we have 100's of healthy dogs in shelters waiting to be rehomed but if they aren't taken after a few weeks then they have to be destroyed to make room for the new animals that are brought in. We are killing tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of dogs/cats a year in U.K. yet we allow pet shops and breeders to continue sell puppies/kittens with little or no regulation. All we do is compound an already horrific problem and the poor bastard vets are the ones having to commit genocide on a daily basis to bring balance to a situation created by market forces combined with lack of social responsibility.

 

[Scouse]

Does that problem mean vets should be advising people with temporarily sick animals to kill them?

 

[cHodAX]

Does that problem mean vets should be advising people with temporarily sick animals to kill them?

No, that is no justification and I find it morally objectionable, I am just explaining that due to extreme pressures on vets that is what is actually happening. Everyone needs to take responsibility for the problem, government need to legislate for it and the people need to follow the rules. Sadly none of that happens and so we commit murder on an epic scale just to control the pet population.

 

[rynnor]

Our last dog was only 9 when we noticed she wasnt lifting her tail anymore.

Took her to the vets - sold us some useless cream and we left.

2 weeks later she could barely walk on her back legs - got referred to vetrinary hospital where they scanned and found cancer twined around and through her spinal column and we had her put down at home the next day.

It was a tough decision but to keep her suffering would have been selfish.

I'm sorry - its not easy

 

[Wazzerphuk]

A good vet does make such a huge difference.

Our last one was so good it was ridiculous. Would even send cards home after having put down our rats as sympathy etc. We'd send him cards back. Just a shame we had call to us him in the first place!

 

[cHodAX]

Yep there are some good ones, sadly the only thing most of them send is a whacking big bill with addons that you didn't expect.

 

[Scouse]

No, that is no justification and I find it morally objectionable

Aye. Just wanted clarification.

Unfortunately, the rest of it is the reality of treating pets like any other marketable commodity.

 

[Wazzerphuk]

Yep there are some good ones, sadly the only thing most of them send is a whacking big bill with addons that you didn't expect.

Mine spent a good half hour fashioning a cardboard box into a makeshift rat head tube (like you see on dogs to stop them biting at their stitches) and fitting it for no charge at all after she had gnawed open the wound from surgery.

He was supposed to be a bit of a small animal specialist but I was thoroughly impressed with him and all his staff, you could genuinely tell all that worked at the place cared about animals.

 

[TdC]

Yep there are some good ones, sadly the only thing most of them send is a whacking big bill with addons that you didn't expect.

err not all of them do the unexpected thing. my lovely vet would specify every single thing he was doing and that wasn't really a lot. but he would unblinkingly charge amazing amounts of money for meds after doing the good work mind. pet meds....zomg ye prices 0o

 

[Sar]

We had to have our 15 year old King Charles put down about 6 weeks ago. She had got to the same stage pretty much and it really was the best thing for her.

It certainly wasn't an easy decision, but she'd been going downhill for a long time, and we decided enough was enough. Keeping her alive for our sakes would've just been cruel on her, watching her struggle more with each passing day.

 

[MrHorus]

VEts especially seem to have some kind of bonus for the amount of pets they snuf.

Sorry toht, but I couldn't let that one slide.

$dayJob does a lot of it's business with the veterinary sector and I speak to vets nearly every day. If you genuinely think that vets get a bonus for the amount of animals they euthanise then I can tell you for a fact that it's complete rubbish - I've never heard of any vet getting a bonus for this and they would probably wind up with an inspection from the RCVS if they were putting loads of animals down.

 

[MrHorus]

err not all of them do the unexpected thing. my lovely vet would specify every single thing he was doing and that wasn't really a lot. but he would unblinkingly charge amazing amounts of money for meds after doing the good work mind. pet meds....zomg ye prices 0o

In fairness veterinary practices are businesses, not charities.

You only think the drugs are expensive as you are paying the real price and not something that's subsidised by the health service.

If you want a real shock then you should take a look at the BNF and see how much some human drugs truly cost. Anyone that bitches about the price of an NHS prescription would get a real shock if they saw how much some drugs actually cost retail.

 

[rynnor]

In fairness veterinary practices are businesses, not charities.

You only think the drugs are expensive as you are paying the real price and not something that's subsidised by the health service.

If you want a real shock then you should take a look at the BNF and see how much some human drugs truly cost. Anyone that bitches about the price of an NHS prescription would get a real shock if they saw how much some drugs actually cost retail.

Most people getting a one off course of medicine via prescription are paying over the odds.

Same thing with vet meds - they are legally required to produce a prescription and you can then source them on the net.

Our local chain of vets was sticking 40% onto the retail price!

Once Vets find you have decent pet insurance they start inflating everything - we were referred to a specialist who turned out to be a quack peddling water as injections - cost 1500 for that nonsense.

Other times they have peddled non medicinal junk based on pseudo science - the insurers should show more backbone.

 

[cHodAX]

In fairness veterinary practices are businesses, not charities.

You only think the drugs are expensive as you are paying the real price and not something that's subsidised by the health service.

If you want a real shock then you should take a look at the BNF and see how much some human drugs truly cost. Anyone that bitches about the price of an NHS prescription would get a real shock if they saw how much some drugs actually cost retail.

When mum takes our family dog for it's yearly booster we know that the vet is paying under £10 for the vial at trade prices and charging us £37, that means £27 for a 5 minute appointment and a needle/syringe. Poor Vets do not exist and very very few charge fair prices, especially in more affluent areas where the customers get ripped off massively. Now the drugs. We allow big Pharma to make 100's of billions a year in profits, that is why drugs are so expensive, it has very little to do with actual costs and much more to do with growth, bonuses and dividends. We allow alot of people to die just to keep the prices artifically inflated. The actual R&D, manufacturing costs for most drugs is very low once economies of scale kick in. Oh and the retail prices are obscene, for over 80% of the drugs on the NHS approved list the price the chemist pays is well below the NHS prescription contribution. Unless you believe that drugs like 100x30mg codiene cost £7.90 to make when infact they can be bought at trade for less than 25% of prescription fee.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Sorry toht, but I couldn't let that one slide.

$dayJob does a lot of it's business with the veterinary sector and I speak to vets nearly every day. If you genuinely think that vets get a bonus for the amount of animals they euthanise then I can tell you for a fact that it's complete rubbish - I've never heard of any vet getting a bonus for this and they would probably wind up with an inspection from the RCVS if they were putting loads of animals down.

No i don't actually think that they get a bonus, just a way of putting it to say "they don't seem to object to it", or "they are easy to put doggies down". No sorry needed, misunderstanding really.

 

[MrHorus]

Once Vets find you have decent pet insurance they start inflating everything - we were referred to a specialist who turned out to be a quack peddling water as injections - cost 1500 for that nonsense.

That's awful.

Most reputable vets wouldn't do that, but in all fairness if you have insurance that will cover things then it's only reasonable that they will start recommending treatments and care options that just wouldn't be affordable if you were paying out of pocket.

Still, that's no excuse for referring you to a quack.

I'd complain to the RCVS over something like that.

 

[MrHorus]

No i don't actually think that they get a bonus, just a way of putting it to say "they don't seem to object to it", or "they are easy to put doggies down". No sorry needed, misunderstanding really.

*nods*

That's fair enough.

From the perspective of a self-serving vet, why take the easy option of putting an animal down when you can charge more money for additional treatments?

 

[MrHorus]

When mum takes our family dog for it's yearly booster we know that the vet is paying under £10 for the vial at trade prices and charging us £37, that means £27 for a 5 minute appointment and a needle/syringe.

You are paying for the vets expertise and time as much as the drug, which is only reasonable.

What my sister does - and she is a human nurse - is to pay the vet to dispense to her the steroid injections that her dog needs on the understanding that she is happy enough and competent enough to inject him herself, that way she doesn't need to pay him for his time and expertise to do it.

I would have thought that it was legally dodgy to do that, but apparently not.

Poor Vets do not exist and very very few charge fair prices, especially in more affluent areas where the customers get ripped off massively.

Vets charge whatever pricing structure the local area will support. If Mrs Fernleigh-Winklebottom is happy to pay double for little Fifi-Trixabelle to be examined then more fool her

The actual R&D, manufacturing costs for most drugs is very low once economies of scale kick in. Oh and the retail prices are obscene, for over 80% of the drugs on the NHS approved list the price the chemist pays is well below the NHS prescription contribution. Unless you believe that drugs like 100x30mg codiene cost £7.90 to make when infact they can be bought at trade for less than 25% of prescription fee.

You are oversimplifying things IMO.

Yes the R&D of any given drug - when amortised over time - is recovered once economies of scale kick in, but that doesn't really take into account that the true cost of R&D for any one drug brought to market is the result of hundreds of failures that never leave the lab, on top of the cost of phase one trials that don't go anywhere, phase two trials that don't show promise in humans and promising drugs that never gain final approval due to their side effects or that they aren't demonstrably better than the existing alternatives already on the market.

You are right that most generic drugs cost pennies to make and cost far less than the Prescription Tax, but there are other drugs - and I'm thinking cancer drugs, hormones, synthetic optiates and anti-psychotics - that can cost hundreds and hundreds of pounds per box.

The NHS has always been very upfront that the Prescription Tax is a contribution towards the costs involved in running the community pharmacy system and that the cost of the tax bears no relation to the actual cost of the drugs supplied.

 

[Raven]

Vets charges are very reasonable imo. It's not like there is an NHS for pets. They have saved my cats life twice, once as a kitten when he had a urinary blockage and once when he was a bit older and had a badly infected wound. The injections and medicine then gave me to administer saved him.

Funnily enough, my cat loves the vet. As a feral cat he doesn't trust humans but he seems to know the vet is trying to help him. We have to take him every few months due to his hobby of kicking the crap out of foxes.

 

[cHodAX]

There is paying for expertise and then paying through the nose for a 50p sringe/needle and less than 5 minutes of thier time, unless you consider £26.50 to be fair for 5 minutes work. Now I am sure someone will pipe up and say 'the vet won't be making that all day long and won't be getting paid that for the full 8 hours a day' and yes that is true , mainly because alot of people only go to the vet as a last resort due to the inflated prices and so the vet has long periods of inactivity. Goto any branch of the PDSA and watch how busy they are, they are a non-profit and are drowning in customers who cannot afford normal vet rates.

MrHorus, on the drugs issue you dodged the most important bit. The tens of billions that big Pharma pay out each year in bonuses, dividends or leave in the bank to build warchests for the purpose of aquisitions. The profits, divedends and bonuses are obscene when you consider the amount of people who do not have access to adequate medication purely based on cost. Forget the R&D costs, they are chump change in the grand scheme of things, my brother has been involved (as a biomedical scientist) in the development of cancer detection kits and cancer therapies at some of the most distinguished research establishments in Europe. The numbers don't add up, paying PHD's £35k a year for drug development but paying sales staff 2-3 times that for flogging those drugs to hospitals once the drugs get clearance. Paying the Pharma executives 30 times that including bonuses.

That is where alot the money is going and that is why drugs are too expensive, the actual R&D costs are only small peice of the pie despite what the Pharma industry would have you believe. If that wasn't the case then profits would not be so high and sustained over such a long period.

 

[megadave]

Sorry toht, but I couldn't let that one slide.

$dayJob does a lot of it's business with the veterinary sector and I speak to vets nearly every day. If you genuinely think that vets get a bonus for the amount of animals they euthanise then I can tell you for a fact that it's complete rubbish - I've never heard of any vet getting a bonus for this and they would probably wind up with an inspection from the RCVS if they were putting loads of animals down.

Yeah if they have a stake in the practice rather than just a wage then they'll actually make money oft certain treatments but not from euthanasia.

 

[cHodAX]

Vets charges are very reasonable imo. It's not like there is an NHS for pets. They have saved my cats life twice, once as a kitten when he had a urinary blockage and once when he was a bit older and had a badly infected wound. The injections and medicine then gave me to administer saved him.

Funnily enough, my cat loves the vet. As a feral cat he doesn't trust humans but he seems to know the vet is trying to help him. We have to take him every few months due to his hobby of kicking the crap out of foxes.

It varies from case to case and from vet to vet. There are plenty of horror stories about vets ripping off people, yes all the good work goes unreported but so do alot of the scams. Generally I want to believe they are all good people but when I go to the PDSA and see the great work they do for very little money, then go to my own local vet who drives an Aston Martin to work and yet works maybe half hard as the PDSA staff but charges 2-3 the fees, well that makes my blood boil.

 

[cHodAX]

Yeah if they have a stake in the practice rather than just a wage then they'll actually make money oft certain treatments but not from euthanasia.

Well, they make decent money off the kill injection and then they make money off the disposal service should you choose to take it and not bury your pet at home. So they actually do make money from putting your pets down, it is a business and not a free service.

 

[Chilly]

It varies from case to case and from vet to vet. There are plenty of horror stories about vets ripping off people, yes all the good work goes unreported but so do alot of the scams. Generally I want to believe they are all good people but when I go to the PDSA and see the great work they do for very little money, then go to my own local vet who drives an Aston Martin to work and yet works maybe half hard as the PDSA staff but charges 2-3 the fees, well that makes my blood boil.

Why? It's an open market. There's nothing stopping anyone training and opening their own except a shit load of hard work.

 

[cHodAX]

Why? It's an open market. There's nothing stopping anyone training and opening their own except a shit load of hard work.

You make it sound so simple, financing it all is big ask because they need so much equipment, drugs and staff to start up. They also need to obtain a sizeable loan with little to no capital from a credit market that is incredibly risk adverse right now. That is why there are so few vets and generally they don't compete, they have a price tarrif inline with each other. It isn't a competitive market.

 

[Punishment]

Vet charges are fairly reasonable tbh, it's a service it has running/training costs.

Also no im not putting my dog down for my own convienience or to split the "profit" with my vet, nothing is settled yet but we shall see, i can't even count the amount of sleepless nights i've had worrying over if my old friend is suffering/depressed and where im going to bury him, i wouldn't wish it on anyone.

 

[Wazzerphuk]

The PDSA do great work but if you can't afford to keep or look after an animal properly (includes insurance if necessary (obviously some animals are pointless to insure)) then I'm not sure you should be having one.

Same way I think certain homeless people having dogs when they can't feed them is wrong. Yes, it's your company and friend but you're causing it to suffer. That's not very friendly.

 

[Chilly]

You make it sound so simple, financing it all is big ask because they need so much equipment, drugs and staff to start up. They also need to obtain a sizeable loan with little to no capital from a credit market that is incredibly risk adverse right now. That is why there are so few vets and generally they don't compete, they have a price tarrif inline with each other. It isn't a competitive market.

I completely disagree. If there were substantial profit to be made by undercutting overcharging vets, then tesco or some other big company would open a chain. The great thing about capitalism is that what you think is happening doesnt happen nearly as much as you think.

so what if he drives an aston martin? He's worked hard - it's not his fault someone doing a similar job has allowed themselves to get paid naff all.

 

[MrHorus]

Goto any branch of the PDSA and watch how busy they are, they are a non-profit and are drowning in customers who cannot afford normal vet rates.

It's my understanding that you need to be in receipt of Housing Benefit in order to receive PDSA treatment.

I'd argue that anyone who has to rely on Housing Benefit probably can't afford an animal in the first place, but that's a whole other argument, there are edge cases etc etc.

[quote[MrHorus, on the drugs issue you dodged the most important bit. The tens of billions that big Pharma pay out each year in bonuses, dividends or leave in the bank to build warchests for the purpose of aquisitions.[/quote]

And why shouldn't they?

If they take the capital risk in the first place to invest in R&D why should they not reap the rewards?

The profits, divedends and bonuses are obscene when you consider the amount of people who do not have access to adequate medication purely based on cost.

I don't think anyone in Europe really suffers from lack of access to adequate medication purely down to cost.

They may not be getting the very latest and most expensive drugs in every case, but the lot of a poor person in Europe is far, far better than it would be than if they were (for example) in the US. Over there is really IS obscene when healthcare becomes a proper industry and where profits are put above patient care.

For all the faults and issues with the NHS, we are nothing like that here.

The numbers don't add up, paying PHD's £35k a year for drug development but paying sales staff 2-3 times that for flogging those drugs to hospitals once the drugs get clearance. Paying the Pharma executives 30 times that including bonuses.

It's the same in the IT industry to be fair - sales and executives get paid many times what the techies who implement the solutions earn.

That's just the way it is - sales at $dayJob bring in the reddies that pay the salaries.

That is where alot the money is going and that is why drugs are too expensive, the actual R&D costs are only small peice of the pie despite what the Pharma industry would have you believe.

How much do *you* think it costs to bring a new drug to market?

It's far, far more complex than just paying a phd their 35k to do basic research.

If that wasn't the case then profits would not be so high and sustained over such a long period.

I just don't have a problem with that, really.

 

[MYstIC G]

No offence, I don't have a view in general, but who the fuck are any of you to decide what someone's time should be worth? Yeesh.

Sorry to hear about your pet Punishment.