The doctors and staff of Pennfield Animal Hospital know your pet’s medical emergency is a very serious matter. As a small private practice, it is difficult to provide 24 hour round the clock doctor access for every day of the week. To assure that you will be able to receive emergency care when necessary, we have a network of “back up” doctors and hospitals in the area that can provide emergency care when needed. Deciding which situations are true emergencies can be difficult. Often minor problems can be perceived as urgent problems. Reassurance and advice may be all that is needed in some of these cases. To determine whether an event is a true emergency (one that must be seen within a few hours) there are several sources that you may consult. For routine health questions, first aid for minor injuries, or general health information, one excellent source is our hospital’s internet website (www.pennfieldanimalhospital.com) under “library links”.
If you believe your pet has been poisoned, you can access the ASPCA's poison control website at www.aspca.org/apcc.
To speak to an actual person about more immediate concerns, call our main phone number (964-0966) to speak with a staff member during regular office hours. After hours calls are either directed to Dr. Atma’s pager or to one of the other local veterinarians on call. If the veterinarian on call does not respond within 10 minutes, a second phone number is also provided for the regional emergency clinics. Any of these sources will help determine if your pet needs to be seen immediately or if he or she can wait.
If it is determined that you have an emergency needing immediate care (hit by car, severe hemorrhage, poisoning, or other trauma), time is often of the essence. Pennfield Animal Hospital may be the closest facility to you --but in the interest of time and depending on your pet's condition-- it may not be the best course of action to head directly to your pet's primary care provider. During regular office hours, we can prepare for the in-coming emergency and perform triage assessment. If after hours, the answering machine message will tell you where to call and/or take your pet.
Dr Atma is on call most weekday evenings. When called after hours, it takes time to drive to the clinic, open it up and turn on all the equipment. If time is limited, a considered alternative is to take urgent-care pet emergencies to one of the regional, already staffed, and open emergency clinics (Kalamazoo if on the south or west side of Battle Creek; Lansing if on the north side or Bellevue area). Although the distance may be longer, the effective time to be seen may be equal or less.
There are other advantages to utilizing such emergency care facilities:
1. they have additional support staff to assist, monitor and treat hospitalized pets.
2. they have more specialized equipment to better deal with life-threatening conditions.
3. they have 24 hour care for monitoring critical patients.
4. they have ancillary personnel to do specialized surgeries/procedures, if needed.
5. frequently, local private practice veterinarians will stabilize critical-care patients and then send on to these 24 hour facilities for constant monitoring that is often required.
6. with the ever increasing availability of such emergency care facilities, more veterinarians are sending critical-care patients to them as a matter of medical ethics (that is, higher levels of medical care demands this).
No one can predict when an emergency will arise, but it is always best to plan ahead for emergencies before they occur. Consult our hospital website, clinic folder, or this document to know what number to call and where to go in the event of an emergency. You can also call the main telephone number of our clinic – 964-0966- for verbal instructions; have paper and pencil ready to write down any phone numbers, if provided after hours. Stay calm, be prepared and most emergency situations that arise will have a favorable outcome!
