Mental exhaustion, long hours and staff shortages are the signs of a workforce crisis in the veterinary industry – a struggle that has impacted operations at Access Specialty Animal Hospital in Woodland Hills.
Access, which has other locations in Los Angeles, Pasadena and Torrance, has plastered its website’s main page with a bold notice to clients. Visitors to the site are informed about longer than usual wait times and instances where the hospitals’ current capacity to help every patient is limited to animals with the most urgent needs.
Leah Basinais is the director of operations at Access. She said that six to eight hour wait times are not unusual and that some pet owners must face up to a six week wait when attempting to schedule appointments for their animals.
“And it’s not just our hospitals,” Basinais said in a statement. “We often get phone calls from desperate pet owners telling us we are the fifth hospital they called and that no one could take them.”
According to Basinais, one of the challenges with prioritizing care for certain animals over others is having to inform clients that ailments such as ear infections, lacerations or broken bones may be uncomfortable for both the pet and the owner but are not life threatening.
“My definition of a crisis is going to be very different from (the client’s),” Basinais said. “I feel like that’s got to be really, really upsetting to owners.”
The current crisis partly stems from the pandemic as people stuck at home took in pets for companionship. According to a May survey by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, nearly one in five U.S. households acquired a cat or dog since the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, equating to about 23 million homes.
“The vast majority of these households still have that pet in the home – 90 percent for dogs and 85 percent for cats,” the organization reported.
While pet ownership has soared, the veterinary infrastructure to care for those animals can’t react so quickly.
Basinais at Access said emergency vets at the company must reckon with the standard mental toll that comes with their work, in addition to operational changes as a result of COVID-19.
The increased demand for Access’ emergency services, according to Basinais, has generated a lot of revenue for the business. However, with more demand has come higher expenses. Overtime payouts have increased, as has the use of medical supplies.
“We’re really increasing hospitality positions to make sure (clients) know they’re just as important as the pet,” Basinais said. “A lot of what we do is hiring to communicate better with the owners.”
Basinais added that Access has implemented a zero-tolerance policy for clients to ensure staff are not being abused or harassed.
Burnout career
Lauren San Martin, marketing and membership manager for the Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care Society said that the career challenges common to veterinarians are currently heightened, from working long hours to exposure to death to compassion fatigue.
San Martin and Basinais both acknowledged that another issue veterinarians deal with is financial trouble linked to the education and training needed to become a veterinarian, which can cause significant debt. The American Veterinary Medical Association found that the average educational debt for 2016 veterinary school graduates was $143,757.
The culmination of challenges in the veterinary field have caused veterinarians to take a break or leave the occupation permanently, creating staffing shortages at animal hospitals such as the ones Access oversees.
Trisha Bailey, hospital administrator for Access’ Woodland Hills branch, wrote in an email that in the hospital’s current state, the staff is just trying to keep their heads above water and that making it out of the current moment will take time and collaboration.
“I want to fight through this right alongside all of them and be of support to them so we can get to the other side of this crisis together,” she wrote. “Even I have moments where I question my loyalty and how it affects me mentally, but then an employee comes into my office and thanks me or shows appreciation for my efforts. Those small, but big to me moments keep me going.”
To recruit employees, Basinais mentioned that higher sign-on bonuses and salary demands have also come into play. “We’re a lot busier, but … it’s now the costs are just higher,” she said.