Why your vet appointment is canceled

If ever there was a time to reflect on the veterinary care your pets receive, it’s now.

Veterinarians are not only in general and specialty practice to take care of your pet when it gets sick, we are also on the front lines in county and state public health departments and ensuring the safety of our food supply.  

Related: Get our Surgical Insights Guide

You may now understand why it’s important to stay home and not rush to the doctor at the first signs of illness without first calling ahead, but why are veterinary appointments being cancelled? 

We know that the novel coronavirus, COVID-19 or SARS-CoV-2, spreads primarily through person to person contact.  In other words, it spreads when you are within breathing, coughing or sneezing distance of another person. In order to ‘flatten the curve’ and reduce the spread of COVID-19, it’s important that we greatly reduce the number of people we come into contact with each day.  

 Since we do not yet, and likely won’t, have widescale testing, isolation and quarantine procedures in place nationwide, we are left to implement mitigation measures.  This means that we need to minimize the number of people who come into contact with each other in every setting and situation.  Even if you are healthy and don’t have a fever, you could still be able to spread the virus. 

In order to ensure that veterinarians and their staff remain healthy to care for the sick pets of everyone, including the elderly and immunocompromised, we need to ensure that we are taking precautionary measures to limit the potential exposure and spread of the coronavirus.  

Here are three reasons why your veterinarian may ask to reschedule your pet’s appointment, surgery or procedure to a later date:

• To stagger appointments to ensure proper distance can be maintained between people to limit the spread of coronavirus. If we get sick, who will take care of your pet when it gets sick?  Having an ear infection or being sick is no fun for us and it’s no fun for your pet. We want to be there for you in your time of need, so we need you to do your part with social distancing and stay home and away from crowds to help keep our staffs who care for your pets safe. 

• To conserve medical supplies. If you turn on the news you are bombarded with stories about how masks and important PPE or personal protective equipment are being rationed and how we simply do not have enough to care for the numbers of sick human patients in the hospitals.  Veterinarians are being asked to be mindful and do our part to conserve medical supplies at this time.  If dogs and cats can’t get COVID-19 and aren’t spreading the virus, who do you think is going to be asked to give up their PPE first, doctors and nurses caring for sick human patients, or veterinarians? 

• To protect their staff and prevent the spread of coronavirus.  In some localities, if veterinary personnel are tested positive for the COVID-19 virus, hospitals may have to close to disinfect the facility and quarantine their staff for up to 14 days to prevent further spread. This means no emergency veterinary services for sick pets.  

Minor inconveniences now, will save lives and ensure that your veterinary medical team is there for you when your pet needs them most.  #StayHome and Save Lives.