8A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 2016
Pet care: Risks of night work aren’t merely legal
‘Owners
need to be
proactive
with their
animals.’
Continued from Page 1A
Professional
practicalities
The rotation system has
limitations, but such a sys-
tem is rare on the Oregon and
Washington coasts, according
to Pope.
“I think our rotation is actu-
ally a little bit uncommon,
in that we provide as much
as we do,” he said. “But I do
know that some people end
up having to take that drive to
Hillsboro.”
In general, it is not uncom-
mon, he said, for pet owners
to make emergency trips to
big-city clinics. (Safe Harbor
Animal Hospital in Warren-
ton recommends that their cli-
ents contact a clinic in Vancou-
ver, Washington, after business
hours.)
It takes a fairly large pop-
ulation center to support
around-the-clock emergency
clinics. On the North Coast,
there simply aren’t enough pet
emergencies to justify keep-
ing an animal hospital open
through the night.
The last time Pope was
on rotation, he received two
phone calls, neither of them
dire.
“To have a 24-hour emer-
gency clinic open, to pay
somebody to answer the phone
two times a night, would
never be economically feasi-
ble,” he said, adding that pet
emergencies rarely occur after
midnight.
Dr. Dannell Davis, owner
of Astoria Animal Hospital,
pointed out that “the people
that have the skills, that are
willing to work in the middle
of the night — guess what —
are expensive. You can’t pay
them minimum wage. They
won’t do it.”
It may actually be bet-
ter, during emergencies, for
pet owners to head to a Port-
land clinic, where a full staff
and high-tech equipment await
them.
In addition, veterinari-
ans assume a handful of risks
when they work alone.
They are required by state
Dr. Dannell Davis
owner of Astoria Animal Hospital
Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
Reflected on the right in the glass, Dr. Brad Pope spays a dog as other veterinarians work on Friday at Bayshore Animal
Hospital in Warrenton. North Coast communities need to be prepared to go to Portland for after-hours emergencies.
being up all night can be very
difficult,” Pope said.
Davis said it’s tough for
veterinarians when they cannot
treat every emergency — and
it’s tough when they have to.
“You want to help. You
don’t want people to hate you
because you’re not superhu-
man,” she said. “But yet you
also … you get one chance at
this life. Do I want to spend
it working and dealing with
emergencies, and then fighting
people to pay the bill?”
statute to provide a certain
standard of care, regardless of
the hour. If in the dead of night,
a vet without the aid of trained
technicians cannot save, say, a
dog struck by a car, the dog’s
owner could complain to the
Oregon State Veterinary Medi-
cal Examining Board.
The vet could be penalized
for trying to help, Davis said.
“We love what we do. But
there’s professional practicali-
ties that we have to take into
consideration,” she said.
Safety, security and
sanity
The risks of night work
aren’t merely legal. There are
safety and security concerns as
well.
“It’s very scary, especially
when you’re on your own,”
she said, adding, “We’re com-
ing in to meet people that we
don’t know, by ourselves. How
smart is that?”
Davis, who usually takes
calls until 10 p.m., has had
Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
Bayshore Animal Hospital Veterinary Assistant Mandy
Metzger prepares a Labrador retriever for spaying Friday.
domestic abuse situations take
place in her clinic. She’s had
pet owners show up drunk (and
later lambaste her on social
media). Many people show up
and can’t pay their bill.
Other factors people don’t
see play into a vet’s decision
not to force themselves, or
their staff, to work late nights.
It pays to prevent employ-
ees from experiencing com-
passion fatigue, especially in
a profession with a high churn
rate — and an inordinately
high suicide rate.
“It’s a physically and emo-
tionally demanding profes-
sion, and, for a lot of them,
after a really hard, bad day,
Gaps
Pope acknowledges that
sometimes emergencies get
lost in the rotation system.
Some pet owners just can’t
make it to Portland.
“I think, all in all, it works
well, and it’s a pretty good sys-
tem. We live a long way out
here, and so we do the best we
can,” he said.
Erin Anderson, of Astoria,
recently lost her 14-year-old
cat, Eeny. When the feline suf-
fered a stroke after midnight,
Anderson was unable to reach
a vet. Eeny died at around 7:30
a.m.
Anderson, 65, and her hus-
band have night vision prob-
lems that would have prevented
them from driving to Port-
land. They also own a handful
of other pets that would have
needed babysitting.
It’s highly possible that
Eeny would have died even if
he had seen a vet. But Ander-
son said she would have appre-
ciated having a doctor around
to give Eeny painkillers, or to
euthanize him.
“I like the vets here. All the
vets are very nice people. I’m
not knocking any one of them.
I admire what they do. I know
it’s tough on a rural area,” she
said. “But it’s tougher on us
whose pets die in our arms.”
Anderson said she doesn’t
know what the solution is, but
she wants to keep a public con-
versation going about how to
close occasional gaps in ser-
vices that can occur from dusk
to dawn.
Prepare
Davis always tells her cli-
ents that they should have a
back-up plan. “Yes, it’s a drive
to Portland, but they need to be
prepared for that,” she said.
If people choose to own
pets and live in a rural area
— two hours from the near-
est 24-hour clinic — then, she
said, they must understand that
the trade-off is in not having
access to 24-hour care locally.
“Animals hurt, and it
breaks out heart. It breaks my
heart,” she said. “But owners
need to be proactive with their
animals.”
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