Do you really want pharmacists to fill out animal prescriptions?

Animals
1

You may have heard of the vets' strike for tomorrow, November 6th, and thought it was just another case of professionals trying to saveguard their incomes. We went to our vet today for annual jabs and he pointed out several things:


Firstly, it's going to be massively inconvenient. Under the new law vets are only going to be allowed to issue certain antibiotics, if the vet decides that another injectable antibiotic is the one that will work he has to fill out a prescription, you take it to the pharmacist (after having put your animal back in the car etc), get the drugs, go back to the vet, wait to be seen with a possibly stressed animal who is back in its least favourite place for the second time in a day and if you're unlucky you'll get charged for a second visit too.


We spent nearly three months this summer going to the vet three times a week with a dog who nearly lost his leg due to a flesh eating bug and I can't think of how much worse a nightmareish situation would have been if we'd kept on having to go to the pharmacist too, to say nothing of the poor dog who found having his leg bandaged and re-bandanged very uncomfortable.


Secondly; it seems a pointless complication. After all the vet is the one who has examined the animal and decided on its treatment, why involve a third party?


Thirdly; the reason behind this proposal is apparently the desire to cut down on vetinary prescriptions (nothing to do with pharmacists making money out of issuing animal prescriptions of course). Our vet said that in countries where pharmacists have started doing this the use of antibiotics for animals has gone up not down.


If you feel uneasy about this proposed law think about signing this petition here;


http://www.stop-marisol-touraine.com


If you sign it you'll get sent a confirmation email to click on, this is to make sure no one says the vets are just adding their client lists to the petition!


Please share this as much as possible. I'm also going to post this on the dogs group.


2

I had a chat with our vet when I spotted him having a coffee at a café a couple of weeks ago. There are two vets within about 200m of each other. One is a clinic type with a little 'dispensary' of its own but so much like a 'sausage machine' we were relieved when we noticed the other is there. He is a bit of a 'grumpy' type until people get to know him. Then he is a charming, nice man.

Anyway, the point is that what he said was that he has few enough clients as it is and whilst thus far we have mainly only had annual jabs for cats and dogs, one cat had an injury sewn and treated and an ancient dog 'helped' to go when in obvious pain, we are regulars. He may not be able to compete with the other practice with the new legislation, about which I knew nothing until he told me, but will inform us if he has to close down.

How many small vets are going to be affected similarly? It seems to be a totally counterproductive measure to take and your points are absolutely right Victoria. I have always been a bit fussy about vets and switched around a bit to find one my animals are comfortable with and I feel are giving good service. This is going to put people like our present vet out of business, therefore reduce such options for users as well as the obvious unemployment it will cause.