On Christmas Eve, Julie Jones found herself banging on the door of a local emergency vet for 15 minutes trying to get help for her violently seizing dog, Bella.
After failing to get help in Augusta, Jones had no choice but to drive an hour and half to Columbia in an attempt to get medical treatment for her beloved Yorkie.
“I was so alone, and it was after midnight. I had my flashers on, deer on the sides of the road, and the constant sound of her paws hitting the sides of the floorboard while she was seizing the whole time,” Jones texted a friend at the time.
It would be a few days before Jones finally got the heartbreaking word that Bella had a brain tumor.
Jones and countless other pet owners have taken to social media to share their stories and losses due to a lack of emergency veterinarians and are pleading with someone to find a solution.
Not having an emergency vet sometimes means the unnecessary suffering or death of the pet. Other times, it means owners will be driving multiple times from Augusta to either Aiken, Columbia, or Atlanta to continually receive adequate care for their pet.
Jones went to extra lengths to care for Bella, taking her to an oncologist in Greenville, S.C. before the 13-year-old dog died in July, and she’s not alone.
Gaby Gumus, an Augusta native, says that she recalls times where she had to drive her elderly grandmother to Columbia for her cat to be taken care of.
“People don’t realize time is always of the essence when an animal is hurt. People don’t have time to drive to Columbia. If an animal is in need of being put down after being hit by a car, it’s suffering because you don’t have anywhere to take him to be euthanized and put down,” she said. “That breaks my heart.”
A few local veterinarians, such as St. Francis Hospital and Blue Pearl, operated as 24-hour clinics before COVID-19. However, since the pandemic, both have changed to only having extended hours. St. Francis’s website references “urgent care” but not emergency care. It refers emergency cases to Blue Pearl.
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Calls to Blue Pearl seeking comment were not returned. The Blue Pearl website shows that there are some extended hours on the weekend, but it is not 24-hour care. The website suggests calling before arriving at the emergency room.
Many pet owners are not aware of the lack of an emergency veterinarian until it is too late and turn to social media for help in finding a close emergency veterinary clinic.
“People waste time online trying to find an emergency vet in the area, and they waste 15 to 20 minutes they don’t have because they are not aware they have to go to Columbia. They are losing precious time,” said Gumus. “How many people have lost animals in Augusta because of this?”
Becky McArdle, who is heavily involved with animal rescue, said she has had several cases of animals dying because of a lack of emergency services. McArdle says the problem is widely due to staffing and funding shortages in the field that result in clinics not having sufficient staff to provide Augusta with a 24-hour clinic.
McArdle said it is crucial for pet owners to have a plan and a backup plan in case your pet has an emergency.
“Talk with your vet, have a backup plan for your backup plan.”
Dr. Thomas McNair, owner of Wilkes County Veterinary Services, said his clinic used to offer 24-hour animal assistance but recently became overwhelmed with the amount of emergency cases due to being the only open clinic in the nearby area.
“We have always done emergencies, and we’ve just always made it a point to continue doing that for our clients,” said McNair. “We still do on-call, and we still see emergencies, but within the last week or two we’ve had to limit our emergencies and can no longer provide our services between 12 a.m. and 6 a.m.”
McNair hopes these hours will be a temporary change but said that a majority of vets in surrounding areas have either limited hours, staff or have completely shut down.
“It just became too much emergency work for us to be able to do and still provide quality care to our clients during the day,” he said.
McNair said there is a shortage of veterinarians, especially in mixed animal practices.
Heather Jordan, local reptile pet owner, spoke on her struggles with a lack of a reptile vet, on top of an emergency vet.
“I know I’ve had friends that have tried to get into an emergency vet where they either didn’t take the animal, which is the only experience I had. There’s not an emergency reptile vet at all, so you’re pretty much S.O.L. if you don’t go when they are open,” Jordan said.
Jordan also said she has had multiple friends who drove to Columbia and have had their cat or dog die on the way. She said she has been turned away at regular vet offices during regular business hours because of a lack of staffing which resulted in animals dying.
“Blue Pearl is the emergency vet in the area, but they’re not open as late now, and they’ve been turning away people. There needs to be more options for emergency vets, or at least a vet that takes more than just cats and dogs,” Jordan said. “There’s just not a lot of options which leaves people stuck going to Blue Pearl. Who is super expensive and kind of rude, and they’re never open.”
Co-owner of Dog On It Training and Grooming, Lia Fricke, said she has heard of cases when Columbia and Aiken’s clinics are both filled to capacity, and pet owners have had to drive all the way to Atlanta for help.
“The veterinary field is just so overrun. They have one of the highest suicide rates of any profession. It’s incredibly frustrating, and it’s not a black and white situation. We should have one here in Augusta, and it’s a heartbreakingly complicated issue,” said Fricke. She also said many vets she knows within the field are struggling mentally, and she is sympathetic to both sides of the coin.
Jordan spoke to the unfairness of pet owners having to drive under acute stress and anxiety for an hour or more.
Fricke said, “It’s not just the fact that you have to drive out of town, it’s maybe work missed or gas money that you didn’t have in addition to paying an exorbitant fee at an emergency clinic. It gets expensive.”
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McNair said that he was not sure what could be done to get a 24-hour emergency vet in Augusta as the problem is not a simple fix.
“As a business owner, I have to balance trying to provide the best service possible to as many people as possible, and taking care of my staff,” he said.
However, for the time being, he said pet owners have to be diligent in making sure to care properly for their pet and not allowing health concerns to be unaddressed, causing them to become emergencies.
“I definitely think more people should care. We have children’s hospitals, and even if you don’t have a child, you still think it’s important, and you still care,” said Fricke. “The same should be applied for animals; having services available for all sentient beings is so important. These are therapy dogs; these are support systems. It’s not just a pet. Augusta especially is such a medical-centric community that it seems an oversight not to have a 24-hour emergency clinic for animals.”
Gumus agreed.
“It’s not fair. We are the second largest city in the state of Georgia. There’s no reason for this, at all,” said Gumus. “What are we doing to fix it? Are we just never going to have an emergency clinic here anymore?”
Liz Wright is a correspondent for The Augusta Press.
